Cyanide Debt restages a mass cyanide poisoning of Vietnamese people in Bangkok in the summer of 2024. The project applies speculative fabulation to entangle the poisoning incident with informal financial flows between Vietnamese diaspora and nationals; as well as the industrial farming of cassava in Thailand, a crop that naturally produces cyanide.
On July 16th 2024, the deceased bodies of six people were discovered in suite 502 of the Grand Hyatt Erawan Hotel in Bangkok, Thailand. Among the group were two Vietnamese-Americans and four Vietnamese Nationals. The group was entangled in a botched investment plan to build a hospital in Japan. They agreed to meet in Bangkok, a place where both American and Vietnamese nations may travel without visas, in an attempt to settle financial losses ahead of their scheduled court trial in Japan. Their negotiations came to a mysterious end when the group was poisoned with cyanide in the hotel suite. Their deaths marked the end to life as well as the end to financial debt. Thai authorities speculate that the incident was murder-suicide using cyanide. The poison was discovered in the water and tea that the group had consumed and the bodies of the group during autopsy.
In Cyanide Debt, the poisoning incident is reinterpeted to consider the potential for the elimination of personal and international financial burdens through the collateral of the human body. The incident provides a spectacular glimpse into informal capital flows, often made through remittances and investments into Vietnam, that bond Vietnamese diaspora and nationals. The project also considers the immense presence of cyanide in Thailand through the mass industrial farming and processing of cassava, the country’s primary agricultural export. In the process of restaging the poisoning incident, a weak cyanide-laden solution is produced through the of manual processing of cassava.
Cyanide Debt was commissioned by Simon Yangtong Li for the exhibition ‘Dwelling Under Distant Suns’ held at the Art Museum of the University of Toronto. Production of ‘Cyanide Debt’ was also supported through the generous support of Howard A. Silverstein and Patricia Bleznak Silverstein and the University of Pennsylvania.
Special thanks to Simon Yantong Li, Tak Pham, Jamie Diamond, Brent Wahl, Gabe Martinez, Howard A. Silverstein and Patricia Bleznak Silverstein; and The Art Museum of the University of Toronto. Actors: C.H., O.K., D.L., H.T., R.Z. and T.Z..