FOREVER LOVE SOUL ENGINE by Pansan Klongdee exhibition curated by Mark Chearavanont Bangkok Kunsthalle 6 February - 15 March 2026

The work begins with a BMW E34, recovered from a junkyard in the Rama II area. Caught in purgatory, the car remains physically intact yet fated to be dismantled. Ontologically, the car occupies two states simultaneously—no longer fully a vehicle, not yet reduced to scrap. This in-betweenness becomes the point of departure for the installation's inquiry into the afterlife of non-human entities, and the rituals through which they are acknowledged, transformed, or released.

FOREVER LOVE SOUL ENGINE unfolds as a techno-animistic ritual—a funeral staged for a machine in transition. In this context, the car functions as an analogue for the human body; a form that retains traces of use and memory. This equivalence is extended through text. Engraved into the car's body are verses detailing its own history, an obituary of sorts and a physical manifestation of memory. Like a tattoo or a scar, the inscriptions serve to communicate identity and lived experience. The text borders on incantation, marking the car as the site of ritual but also the ritualized object itself. Over the course of the exhibition, the car is dismantled piece by piece, tracing a process of material breakdown that echoes bodily decay.

The installation engages with the site through an inverse operation. The space which houses the installation originally functioned as a garage where delivery trucks were repaired. Subverting this history, the installation defines the space as a site of degeneration rather than rehabilitation—a perversion of the original function of the space. No longer a garage, the room itself becomes a concrete coffin and a confrontation of our anthropocentric understanding of the world: how do we relate to the things we live alongside, but rarely consider within frameworks of death and afterlife? And what kinds of rituals might be possible within a technological present?

The work itself does not refer to any specific religion, instead returning to a primal engagement with the notion of soulfulness. Techno-animism, as an epistemological framework, allows us to coalesce with the ancient by collapsing time: invoking prehistoric spiritual understandings within the context of modernity.

The exhibition is structured in two Acts, each initiated by a ritual. Act I (7 February - 28 February 2026) begins with "FOREVER LOVE" (6 February 2026)—a funeral for a car, where sound and performance serve as guides for its passage. During this period, the car remains intact for one last fleeting moment. Act II (2 March - 15 March 2026) is inaugurated by "SOUL ENGINE" (1 March 2026), a one-day performance in which the car is dismantled while the physical sounds of its own destruction are reconfigured live into a soundscape. In this second phase, the car is reduced to its constituent parts—a decomposed mechanical body laid out like an excavated burial. A sound installation, composed from recordings made during the dismantling, plays in the background.

Sound operates as a central agent throughout the work. Returning to In Act I, it functions as a guiding force for the soul of the car, while also serving as an act of simultaneous mourning and celebration. In Act II, it becomes a form of remembrance—the fading memory of a car manifested through the noise of its own undoing. This use of sound

Join us in paying respect to the BMW E34 as it passes from one realm to another.

FOREVER LOVE SOUL ENGINE

Program FOREVER LOVE (6 February 2026)

A funeral ritual for a car, where sound and performance serve as guides for its passage. Join us in sending off a soul, in a moment of simultaneous mourning and celebration.

Act I (7 February - 28 February 2026)

A car caught in purgatory—no longer fully a vehicle, not yet reduced to scrap. During this period, the car remains intact for one last fleeting moment.

SOUL ENGINE (1 March)

A one-day performance ritual in which the car is dismantled while the physical sounds of its own destruction are reconfigured live into a soundscape.

Act II (2 March - 15 March 2026)

In this second phase, the car is reduced to its constituent parts—a decomposed mechanical body laid out like an excavated burial. A sound installation, composed from recordings made during the dismantling, plays in the background.

Tickets: https://www.ticketmelon.com/.../foreverlovesoulengine1

THB 250 through Ticketmelon (link in bio), THB 350 at door

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