Grasping and Clinging was a site-specific collaboration with sound artist John Wynne, developed for Project 304 in Bangkok. The installation emerged from a shared investigation into the paradoxes of attraction and repulsion, probing the tensions between stillness and obsession, and the complexities of human consciousness within an intensely urban environment.

The installation was anchored in the philosophical inquiries of the Venerable Buddhadasa Bhikkhu, specifically his Handbook for Mankind. Hawrysio’s video works and arrangements of found objects focused on the futile nature of attachment to attenuated desires, depicting protagonists engaged in absurd, impossible tasks such as brushing your hair in the wind or holding ice in your hand.

These visual inquiries were complemented by Wynne’s interactive audio devices — ten small, beige boxes designed to blend seamlessly with the gallery’s architectural fittings. These devices operated on a logic of proximity: the synthesised warning sounds — some pleasantly musical, some more obnoxious — remained silent until visitors approached the sculptural objects or videos to look more closely. As the viewer moved in to observe, the sound engaged; if they stood still, the sound ceased. In the final room of the gallery, the pure, impossibly stretched sound of Buddhist Tingsha cymbals accompanied a durational video of a hand clutching melting ice.