PhotoSynth

The Bangkok FIERCE: Cedric Arnold’s Sacred Ink exhibit closes in Thailand. It’s time to BRING IT to Brooklyn.

Portrait 7: Taxi Driver by Cedric Arnold

Generally, people aren’t very curious unless they are at the grocery store, zoo, shopping for socks, or trying on shoes. Then you find a rare species of people who are obsessively curious to the point that it haunts them. And that curiosity is dangerous. Because that’s what gets things done. ‘Grabbing life by the ballers’ I call them.

Curiosity practically led Cedric Arnold by the shirt collar to explore and discover superstitions that incorporated magic in Thailand. Living in Southeast Asia for a few years does that to you. Or does it? Well, it would certainly kick my ass. And I’d welcome every bad smell, wrong turn, misadventure, canceled flight, belly ache, and heavy down pour to come slapping me in the face. Heh. It would do me some goddamn good. Especially since I wouldn’t be able to pack all my cute shoes. Here in NYC, where tech is king, coin is the constant mantra, and yoga lessons are a dime a dozen, Bangkok, happily is NOT.

Slapping aside, the one superstition that continues to haunt Arnold: Yantra. It’s the very thing that propels the Thai to constantly and obsessively seek “protection” from bad luck, evil spirits, and danger. This protection comes in the form of sacred and “magic” text. Just like grandma saying her rosary every night, right? No.

This is not your typical bruja. It’s got more of, how shall we put it, bodily contact. Yantra is often written on cloth, used to bless cars, homes and businesses. Be careful, because it’s not as boring as you think. Yantra also adorns the human body in the shape of spiritual tattoos the Thai call Sak Yant (Yantra tattoos).

This sacred ink dates back to the Angkor period of the 9th to 15th centuries. Sak (“to tap”) Yant (“derived from the Sanskrit word Yantra meaning sacred geometrical design.”)

As all good ideas, Sacred Ink was a bit of a happy accident. Arnold’s first encounter happened on assignment when he met a shipyard worker inked head to toe with script and magic spells. He came back the following week. Of course. The shipyard worker introduced him to two tattoo masters who eventually allowed him to witness and photograph countless amounts of ceremonies and tattooing sessions. Jackpot. Arnold feeds the addiction. So, he traveled all over Thailand. Mission: seek out sitters to capture for his large format portrait series.

And that’s Sacred Ink.

The exhibit closed in Bangkok a few days ago.

If this exhibit has any intentions of traveling to Brooklyn, it should. It must. Only because Arnold has an innovative way of not just choosing a subject, but developing the actual photographs.

The various taxi drivers, monks, shipyard workers, and others Arnold captured were also covered from head to toe in negatives that he chemically altered by brushing different chemicals onto the emulsion. The resulting portraits are a ballsy range of Thai men from all walks of life with massive units of Yantra protection inked all over them. Old, young, in the in, in the outs, and on the move.

And while I’m on the move in not-so-sacred Brooklyn, I’m softly landing from rooftop party to rooftop party, dinner table to dinner party, project to acquisition, client to future endeavor, and netflix boyfriend-less night to gym filled mornings. Hey, I’m not complaining. But I am a tad uneasy about this. I feel more endangered when I get too comfortable. The temperature of my anxiety rises. By the time I was 19 I had already crossed the Sahara, much of North Africa, traveled through Israel, had one knife pulled out on me, 6 stitches in my hand, survived 9-11, and became a real New Yorker after being viciously mugged last November. That’s nothing.

Or is it? Maybe it’s Yantra.