The Exhausting Dance reflects on labour, exposure, and bodily endurance during the COVID-19 pandemic in Thailand, examining how viral risk and toxic air intersect as overlapping crises that reveal social inequality.
Filmed in salt fields outside Bangkok, the work observes labourers whose physical proximity and coordinated movement challenge public narratives of “social distancing,” showing how safety is shaped by class, necessity, and economic pressure.
Through repetition and sustained attention, the video frames labour as a choreography of survival. Endurance becomes both a condition and a form of resistance, as bodies navigate invisible threats, environmental toxicity, and structural vulnerability.
The work invites viewers to recognise the uneven distribution of risk and to reflect on whose lives are expected to remain exposed in times of crisis.