Hardly half baked, Kittiwat Unarrom's body parts made of bread echo Buddhist philosophy

Freshly baked human head? Can’t go wrong with that. How about a right arm fresh from the oven?
Baked goods sound appealing enough but, as a baker, Kittiwat Unarrom is a bit of a butcher.
He uses dough all right, and everything is quite edible. It’s just that he moulds his loaves into body parts – and they’re very realistic.
It’s all part of the anatomical fun of “Body & the Death”, Kittiwat’s show at the Whitespace Gallery.
The exhibition continues until December 14, but there’s no fear of everything turning green – he seals up the mouldy moulded loaves in resin, along with photos of their decomposition in progress.
“I wanted to reflect the universal fact of life – birth, existence and decay – that everything is subject to change,” says the 31yearold.
So the gallery has humanish limbs and internal organs dangling all over the place, wrapped in plastic and pricetagged for sale. Put in your order and take a few home to watch them rot.
Kittiwat comes by his dough honestly: His family runs a bakery in Photharam in Ratchaburi. He personally cared less about baking until he discovered some stale loaves in the fridge.
“I suddenly realised that stale bread smells just like corpses!” he says.
The next thing Silpakorn University knew, Kittiwat was submitting an odious collection of bread cadavers as his master’s thesis, and all the newspapers were sending round photographers.
“I was still talking about consumption at this stage, about people grabbing the food that has the most colourful and welldesigned packaging, not for its healthiness.
“This collection is more about what I’ve learned about the transitiveness of existence from Buddhist teachings and practising dharma.”


XTRA
Flour power

The Whitespace Gallery is on the second floor of the Lido Cinema building on Siam Square Soi 3. It’s open Tuesday to Friday from 1 to 7 and weekends from 11.30 to 8. Call (02) 252 2900 or visit www.WhiteSpce.com/gallery.