From Cannes to Sydney: Apichatpong Weerasethakul Debuts Dreamlike ‘Conversation With the Sun’ at MCA
Image: Part of Weerasethakul's Conversation With the Sun (Afterimage) installation Supplied by MCA / Photo by Zan Wimberley
Thai trailblazer and Cannes-winning filmmaker, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, brings his first local installation to the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA), inviting Sydney audiences into an all-encompassing dreamlike meditation on cinema, light and memory.
A Conversation with the Sun (Afterimage) opened this week in the Macgregor Gallery, marking the Palme d’Or winner’s large-scale commission created especially for Sydney.
From Bangkok sunlight to Sydney Harbour
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Building on an earlier iteration in Bangkok, the work reflects MCA Australia’s ambition to bring global experimental art into the heart of Circular Quay.
Best known for films such as Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010) and Memoria (2021), Weerasethakul is also a visual artist who has long blurred the lines between cinema, theatre and installation.
Shaped by his heritage and queer identity, his practice hovers between lustre and shadow, dream and memory.
DuckUnit’s inventive hand in shaping the vision
This time, he teams up with multi-media Bangkok-based collective DuckUnit—Rueangrith Suntisuk and Pornpan Arayaveerasid—to turn the gallery into a drifting five-by-sixteen-metre immersive interplay of light, sound and fabric.
Inspired by his habit of watching the sun during long walks, the work projects fragments of his video diaries onto a strip of fabric that slowly moves through space. Acting as both screen and stage, it catches images that flicker in and out of view on a ghostly loop.
The video installation pushes the performative side of cinema while asking what it means to make images, feel time, and dream.
For Weerasethakul, the projectors serve as both light sources and vessels of memory.
“Afterimage is a meditation on light,” Weerasethakul said, “evoking sunlight, cinema and the passage of time.”
DuckUnit’s role is integral. Suntisuk, a frequent collaborator since 2004, brings technical invention, while Arayaveerasid, a scenographer, captures how movement and recollection play to alter perception.
Together, they craft a hybrid zone, not quite cinema, not quite theatre, but amplifying the space in between.
Sydney’s first encounter with Apichatpong Weerasethakul beyond the screen at MCA
MCA Senior Curator Jane Devery, who led the commission, described the installation as “a heightened poetic atmosphere,” praising its rare mix of scale and intimacy.
Devery added it was a privilege to collaborate with “one of cinema’s most innovative artists.”
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For Sydney, the Afterimage exhibition is a rare chance to encounter one of global cinema’s most distinctive voices beyond the screen. While Weerasethakul has garnered international acclaim, his installations have never been seen in Australia.
The MCA showing extends a conversation that began in Bangkok, reaffirming the institution’s role in Sydney by spotlighting ambitious Asian voices—with Apichatpong Weerasethakul at the centre of its program.
Like all art, it’s not straightforward viewing. With its patient pace and static imagery, Afterimage may test audiences expecting clear narrative. But for those willing to sit with it, the work is meditative, unsettling and quietly rewarding in equal measure.
In the end, A Conversation with the Sun (Afterimage) is less about watching than drifting—with images, with remembrance, and with the impermanence of light.
Additionally, the MCA is extending the exhibition with public programs. On Saturday 16 August, Apichatpong appears in conversation with Devery. Later this year, the museum will screen a selection of his short films from 2007 to 2024, selected by the artist himself.
Free to MCA members and under-18s, the exhibition runs until 15 February 2026. For tickets and more information, visit Museum of Contemporary Art Australia.
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