A disappearing river

Artist Disorn Duangdao is one of the many people who has seen the Mekong River in Chiang Khong, Chiang Rai, change from muddy brown to an aquamarine colour. Although the blue river looks beautiful to tourists, it is actually a sign that the river is starving of vital sediment because dams in China are preventing it from flowing downstream. Another negative impact caused by the dam is that the river has dried up so much that the rocks in the bed can be seen for the first time.

Disorn could not ignore the issue in front of him, so he decided to stone rub the rock’s surface texture onto a piece of paper with brown charcoal. That paper was later developed into an artwork Rock In The Center Of Mekong River at the solo…