In Nobody’s Service
ที่นี่ไม่เปิดให้บริการ Sa Serbisyo sa Walang Sinuman
Impressions from the performance (by Sisu Satrawaha on top right, Raksa Seelapan on bottom left) and exhibition at Galerie Wedding, 2024, Photo by Benjamaporn Rattanaraungdetch
In Nobody’s Service (ที่นี่ไม่เปิดให้บริการ, 2022–present) addresses the violent clichés projected onto Thai and Filipina women and queer bodies. It originated from our earlier project Beyond the Kitchen. After several women revealed that they had previously worked in brothels and met their German husbands there, In Nobody’s Service was born to further investigate the stigmatized intersections of sex work, marriage, and migration. Most existing research on this subject has an economic perspective, often within the framework of social work or NGOs. Many middle-class academics have characterized these women as “gold diggers” or “opportunists” from provincial, working-class backgrounds. While partly accurate, as many women did migrate from Isaan (Thailand) and Visayas (Philippines), both poorer regions and former U.S. military bases during the Vietnam War, this view remains a product of top-down view. The project departs from this by applying a method of “situated knowledge,” speaking from a bottom-up perspective.
This project brings together Thai and Filipino diasporic artists, allowing us to work with our collective pasts, entangled in the present, as material for artistic collaboration with our “sisters and aunties”: women (and trans women) directly affected by these phenomena.
Link to E-Flux Announcement
Link to interview on Oroko Radio
Link to interview on Cashmere Radio Link to article “Nicht mehr zu Diensten” on TAZ newspaper (German)
(Sontam Manifesto, performance based on her installation “Have you eaten?”, as part of closing program “Das Glück ist nicht immer lustig” at Gropius Bau 2025.
Link to Somtam Manifesto by Sisu Satrawaha, special performance at Gropius Bau
Documentary film Westwärts: Südostasiatinnen in der BRD from 1990, which Sarnt Utamachote has found in the Ban Ying’s storage room and digitized it via the grant.
Original flyer for the exhibition at Galerie Wedding 2024 / New poster for exhibition at Thailand Biennale Phuket 2025
With a grant from the Akademie der Künste in 2022, we traveled through several West German cities (Hamburg, Frankfurt am Main, Bochum, Duisburg). Further support from the Goethe-Institut Southeast Asia/Philippines (project Dealing In Distance) enabled us to conduct fieldwork in Cebu and Dumaguete City in the Visayas region in 2025.
The project has resulted in exhibitions, public programs, and films. Its first iteration was presented as an exhibition at Galerie Wedding, Berlin, 2024, with a ten-event public program fostering gathering, community-building, and de-stigmatization. Its second iteration will appear as a pavilion by un.thai.tled at the Thailand Biennale (Phuket, 2025), occupying a building in Phuket’s local massage area. Its third iteration, Dealing In Distance (2025–26), is currently in development with the Goethe-Institut.
Participating artists: Sarnt Utamachote (curator), Wisanu Phu-artdun (Bangkok), Natthapong Samakkaew (Berlin), Rosalia Namsai Engchuan (Bangkok), Sisu Satrawaha (Berlin), Raksa Seelapan (Hamburg), Bussaraporn Thongchai (Berlin), Krisanta Caguioa-Mönnich (Berlin), Jasmin Werner (Berlin), Universe Baldoza (Pampanga), Oat Montien (Bangkok)
Note: The phrase ที่นี่ไม่เปิดให้บริการ is a language play; it can mean either “this place is not open for service” or, literally, “for nobody’s service.”