I The following conversations took place in February 2019, with directors of three significant non-profit and project spaces in Bangkok which have played a crucial role in shaping the current scene in the city: Gridthiya ‘Jeab’ Gaweewong, Artistic Director of the Jim Thompson Art Centre, and Founder and Director of Project 304; Unchalee ‘Lee’ Anantawat, Founder and Director of Speedy Grandma Gallery, and Narawan ‘Kyo’ Pathomwat, Founder and Director of the Reading Room. Each of these spaces has a distinct approach and in these interviews, P’Jeab, P’Lee and P’Kyo look back at their practices and the impact their spaces have had, and how they have navigated Thailand’s complex political reality. The interviews were published in Spike Magazine.

Interview with Gridthiya 'Jeab' Gaweewong

Abhijan Toto: I was wondering if we could talk today about the relationship between the independent scene and politics in the country, from the 90s, the early 2000s and into the very interesting situation we are in now [GG: This is absurd!] Maybe we could start by talking about what the scene was like when you came back from studying at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago – what did you encounter, and what was the institutional landscape like at that time, when you set up Project304?

Gridthiya ‘Jeab’ Gaweewong: I think that was the transition period from the end of the Bhirasi Institute of Modern Art, which closed in the 80s. So in the early 90s, the scene was coming back around because of the commercial galleries. When I came back in 1996, that was towards the end of the ‘bubble economy’. This meant there was no space for non-commercial, experimental or conceptual work. But this kind of work was very much in tune with the rise of globalization – people like Montien Boonma, Chatchai Puipia, Araya Rasdjarmnearnsook, Surasi Kusolwong, Rikrit Tiruvanija, Kamol Phaosavadi. These people were already part of the biennale circuit – for example the Asia Pacific Triennial, the Fukuoka Asian Art Triennial even the Istanbul and Sydney Biennials. This was the generation just before me – so in a way the artists who grew up with me were already a part of the scene at that time; Chatchai, Surasee are the same age as me. But what about people like Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Michael Shaowanasai, and this younger generation, who started later? I think this was a global phenomenon – there was a growing interest in alternative spaces. For me, of course MoMA PS1 was an institution I was inspired by, and Randolph Street Gallery in Chicago, when I was in school. The rise of the warehouse, and the Damien Hirst phenomenon, was coming here too. When I came back to Thailand, everyone wanted to do things in warehouses – and I was asking why, since we’re not an industrial, or rather post-industrial country, with these old warehouses – it really doesn’t work for me.  What I became interested in was doing something from what we had, from scratch, also because of the funding.  What if we wanted to do a nonprofit art space in Bangkok? Without any infrastructure, without any support? Could it still work? Of course not, right? But I still wanted to try!  For me it was--if you want to start something new, it had to have a new model. I was really naïve in the 90’s, because actually it was not new, it had already existed in the 1970s, but it didn’t work, and so we have to learn from those mistakes. That was my rationale, to figure out why, and use the Bhirasi Institute as a case study. Randolph Street also had a major history of being an alternative space in Chicago--it became one of the biggest and most powerful institutions – but they made a mistake by buying a building, and that was the end. So for me, rule number one was: I will not own any property! [laughs]  But that’s why when I came back, and I was looking for a space and couldn’t find any, I went back to look at what I have and decided to start with my own apartment, room 304. 

AT: So while Bhirasi had already shut down, which were some of the galleries in this time that were still trying to do something interesting? 

GG: There was Dialogue Gallery, which was commercial, and had started in 1991 and Visual Dharma, by Alfred Paulin. The other gallery that was important was the one that Chatchai and Pinaree Sanpitak had opened, which was an alternative space called Silom Artspace, and  Concrete House by Chumphon Apisuk. But when I came back, these galleries and the commercial ones had a problem because of the 1997 economic crisis. So there was another flux of alternative spaces, apart from Project304, such as TADU Art Space by Luckana Kunavichayanont, which the BMW Company funded, and About Café, by Noppadon Kaosamang and Meo Yipintsoi, which their family funded. But we had nothing, except energy, and time, and the will! The feeling that I have to do this, otherwise, I’ll die! I gave the proposal for Project304 to Montien, Chatchai and all of these people, and I convinced all my friends in Chicago that we have to do something! They later became my board, and helped me. It was really about contributions – it was a really interesting energy, and was really beautiful, looking back. We had no money, zero – a friend of my father’s donated the air conditioner – that kind of thing! Everything was contributed in kind. 

AT: Could you tell us about the kinds of programmes you started to run at that time in Project304?

GG: The first exhibition was called Hidden Agenda, a show I curated with a few artists like Nattee Utharit, Surasi, Michael, Chitti Kasemkitvitana. Michael also created a fake persona of a non-existent gay artist! It was a very small show, but it created a momentum. The audience was the students from Silapakorn University – such as Arin Rungjang, Pratchaya Phinthong – and they were really shocked! It really changed their perception. So these guys they grew up with About Café and Project304.
It went on like this for 7 years – from 1996 to 2002-3. The last show was after the Gwangju Biennale (curated by Hou Hanru and Charles Esche, which Project304 participated in). 

AT: How did Project304 respond to the extremely volatile political situation in the 90s and 2000s? 

GG: It wasn’t so much driven by the politics so much as by the economic situation. We always had budget issues, running a space without any proper funding, but we got a lot of attention from abroad. A lot of the artists we worked with were invited to join different exhibitions, especially the major shows. We would help people like Apichatpong to produce the work – Mysterious Object At Noon was produced by us.  I remember when he came back and said that we have to do something – I appointed him to take care of film, and Michael would take care of performance, and I would look after visual art. I remember once, during the remembrance of 14th October, 1976 (the Thammasat University Massacre) in 1996, we were asked to do something around that. So we invited a lot of young artists to do a performance in the main ground in Sanam Luang in front of the Grand Palace. It was the first time we invited all these young artists, who were studying in Silapakorn and other universities, and were able to give them a fee of 500 Baht. For many of them, it was the first time they had got an artist’s fee in their career.
The first program we did with Apichatpong was a film program called ‘Kick the Machine’, and when he recently opened the Kick The Machine space in Chiang Mai, he texted me saying, “Do you remember that program, when we started together?” It was really emotional to read that. I saw Project304 as a lab because we were trying a lot of things there in our space. I remember when we moved to the new space, a small townhouse in front of the hospital, I asked Surasi to do a small project with a Singaporean organization. He used a model of a Volkswagen, which he cut in. Charles (Esche) and Hanru saw this and told him to do the real one in Gwangju, and he got the prize thanks to that piece! 

AT: Project304 had a very interdisciplinary approach and one of the projects that grew out of it was the Bangkok Experimental Film Festival. You’ve always used the subversive element in your curatorial practice, and I was wondering if you could tell us about how you used it to navigate the political situation, particularly during the street protests?

GG: We were always trying to connect the film and art worlds; that was always our main purpose. Everyone from the big studios was shocked when I said I wanted to do the first experimental film festival in Thailand.  I didn’t see or realize that it would be really big in the future, because in the international scene, independent film from Thailand is very strong and Apichatpong is one of the leaders of that. This would never have happened without the support of people like the Alliance Française, bringing his films to Cannes and introducing him.  When we were planning the fourth edition, we were looking at the political situation, and it was the beginning of the demonstrations against Thaksin Shinawatra . The demonstrators were going to use the same space we were going to use which was Lumphini Park. Apichatpong and myself wanted to create a parody of democracy, and we included everyone and made a giant installation in the park. We created a space for people to navigate and see whatever they wanted to. Of course, no one could finish everything over the three nights!  It was more than 300 films – a combination of shorts and features – in the middle of violent protests in Bangkok.  

 Through all of these programs, we were able to connect to artists and curators since the 1990s. I think that’s why many of the artists from the region also became more international. I like that it’s not just institutional collaboration, but really peer-to-peer, which is much more meaningful, and very natural. It was really based on friendship. 

AT: How did you bring this underground, subversive energy to the Jim Thompson Art Centre, once you had closed Project304?

GG: I think you can’t get away from your own personality.  When I moved to Jim Thompson, people started to realize that something was happening here, because things were not the same. We tried to engage people, and integrate Jim Thompson into the arts scene, not only locally, but also regionally, and internationally. The House started as a museum in 1975, and then in 2003 it became a space for the arts, even before the art centre at BACC. I joined in 2005-6. I realized that I knew nothing about Thailand, not only the history of the country during the Cold War, but also the art history – because when I was young, I rejected the past.  When I came to Jim Thompson, the whole context of the Vietnam War and the Cold War was here!  I felt less and less interested in the aesthetics, and more in the history, and the context, especially the Cold War history, through the 60s, 70s and so on. That was another big door that opened for me.

AT: Finally, could we also talk about the Khon Kaen Manifesto (which was supported by the Jim Thompson Art Centre) and the impetus behind that? Thanom Chapakdee’s approach was very political as well, not just because of its association with red shirt politics, but also many of the works dealt with politics directly, and people got in trouble for that.

GG: Yes, I think you need a very hardcore kind of curatorial approach which isn’t something I would do – I’m always looking for something more subversive. I’m always looking for that space between art and politics, but that show was really about expressions. Once you get there, you really can feel the liberation – it was almost like a support group for people who wanted to do something, and a release for certain anxieties. Even though it was very brief, it felt very good, against all odds – it was very fresh. In the past five years, we’ve always tried to decentralize the scene, away from Bangkok. That’s why what’s happening in Chiang Mai, with MAIIAM and all those artist’s studios etc, as well as in the Jim Thompson Farm in Korat; in Khon Kaen Manifesto; in Pattani, in the deep south of Thailand was very interesting – and that’s the way to go. It shouldn’t be this Bangkok-centric – that has to be challenged, and it has to be decentralized. 

Interview with Lee Anantawat, 'Speedy Grandma'

Abhijan Toto: So this year will be the seventh year since you first started Speedy Grandma. I wonder if we could begin by going back, and talking about the scene and the institutional landscape you encountered when you first came back from Australia. 

Unchalee ‘Lee’ Anantawat: When I came back from Melbourne in 2010, I don’t think I found so many independent spaces, as there are now. There was About Café, and I found a place called Chez Lodin, near Democracy Monument where they were having an exhibition with Apichatpong (Weerasethakul).  In 2012, a friend from the university wanted to open a graphics studio – and she actually found the building (that would become Speedy Grandma). It was three connected shophouses in Chinatown, and the downstairs was empty, so my friend Thomas and I thought that we could turn this space into a gallery, and so we started to work together and renovate. I don’t want to say its “experimental”, because I’m not sure it’s that, but my main objective for running Speedy is to provide an ‘alternative’ space, an alternative way of doing a show, proposing the idea that we don’t really need these white cube environments, and that we can actually have fun while you’re seeing the work!  Do you want some beer?

AT: Sure! Self-publication is an important part of your practice. Could you tell us a little about POOP Press and the landscape of self-publishing as you see it? 

LA: This culture of self-publishing really just came back a few years ago – and I think at Speedy, we’ve really been working to bring it back; and now there’s the Bangkok Art Book Fair (at Bangkok CityCity Gallery).  In terms of the practice of self-publishing, we had quite a ‘renaissance’ of zine culture around the year 2000-04. At that time, music, zines and films were huge – we had FAT Festival, which was more for music, with indie bands, people who no one had heard of, making their own music – and people would be making their own books and selling them there, too. Soon after, there was a independent zine fair called Nangsue Tam Mue at MBK (in the centre of the city)! I was like “Wow, it can be right there!”
I wonder: what was the point at which all of this disappeared? I think that after 2006, the independent scene going downhill was really related to the politics. 2006 really split the country, along political lines, and people’s views were so different, they couldn’t work with each other anymore. I really think this was the main cause.  Of course, right now we’re still trying to bring it back. 

AT: And how do you think things are different now? 

LA: I think it’s changed a lot – we have a different king now, so of course, the divisions between people will not be so hardcore. I think the way people feel towards the monarchy is different now and they are able to be more critical than they were before, more than ever. People who were royalists now want to be critical, too. I think people now understand more now, even though there are still differences of opinion – people feel like they are able to share different opinion more now than before.

AT: …and then there’s also the upcoming election. But what do you think this has changed the energy in the art scene? 

LA: Yes, I think it’s definitely changed! However, we should be clear about what we’re talking about when we are talking about the art scene. We have more spaces opening up now, especially those run by the younger generation, and projects, like IWANNABANGKOK, Sangnual lap, CONDO and groups of kids doing things – which is nice. But a lot of times, these spaces last for a short while, and have to close down, because they don’t have the income to continue.  For me, I’m never going to be rich, but I have the time to do thing and I have much more freedom to do things. 

AT: Which brings us to how the Bangkok Biennial came about, and how did you guys go about doing something on this crazy scale?

LA: Looking back now, it’s pretty much the same idea, but just bigger. We just wanted an alternative way to run the biennial – I don’t think we’re an alternative biennial, but a biennial using alternative means to do certain things.  We were thinking that, since there is no art biennale here – could we do it? At the time, the organizers were just 3 people, but we felt that it was not important to promote who we were, and we wanted to see if we could sell the idea itself to everyone, without them knowing who was doing it. So that’s how we came up with the open call: we released the form, and once you registered, you were in! The form wasn’t for application – just registration.  I really liked the way each pavilion supported each other, and this in turn built internal relationships. But I know that people from outside of Thailand, or from big institutions don’t really consider us a biennale, but who the fuck gets to define what a biennale is? 

AT: Wrapping up, how do you feel about this new burst of energy, of new shows, of new spaces, and how do feel this will develop going forward?

LA: I think I’m quite surprised by it as well. On some weekends, there’s just so many things to do and I don’t know how you can fit everything in! I think in a way it’s good – but sometimes I’m afraid it’s going to become something of a spectacle, and it’ll only be about how many people attended, or the hype. But I really enjoy this atmosphere where people want to talk about things, even if they are just stupid things! And I like that there’s more spaces that are doing those kinds of things – perhaps the whole landscape can do things like that too, and collaborate more. I know it’s hard, and it sucks, because it totally shows that there is no support from our state. But in Third World Countries, we are already equipped with the idea that we can’t really rely on our governments, so we have to rely on ourselves, and that’s the way to do things. I want to prove that that’s possible – and then people can see there’s another way to do things! 

 Narawan ‘Kyo’ Pathomwat at the Reading Room

Abhijan Toto: P’Kyo, this year is quite special as you’re about to celebrate the ten-year anniversary of the Reading Room, which you say you want to approach as an opportunity to introspect, particularly in the current political climate. Could we start by going back to ten years ago, when you came back from NYC, and decided to start the space – what was the landscape you encountered, and how did you decide upon this model? 

Narawan ‘Kyo’ Pathomwat (KP):  Looking back now, when I came back to Bangkok in the mid 00s, there were a number of independent art spaces – mostly in the gallery or exhibiting model, but nothing quite like an art library or resource centre. I realized I had already gathered a small collection of books and materials that I wanted to share with the community, creating a small research library. But you know, a space becomes an organic thing, and needs to adapt to the needs of the community that grows around it, and hence I started doing the kinds of activities that I’m still continuing. Also, at that time I felt that there weren’t really the kind of hybrid spaces in the scene that could accommodate the kinds of things we were interested in. Of course, it was tied innately to the political situation of the time: this is 2009, before the election of Yingluck Shinawatra (in 2011), and we had seen large scale pro-Thaksin political demonstrations around the country earlier in the year. We were in a time of intense restriction of the freedom of expression, while simultaneously, it was a time when there was felt an intense need to organize more political discussions. At that time, these talks were only being organized in spaces such as universities, which were already under scrutiny, so we needed another kind of space as a platform for radical, leftist activists, where we could bring together people from different backgrounds and disciplines. So in these early years, we focused largely on educational programs, which included talks by academics and activists, and screenings. In the first five years, there was still a feeling of hope for the people organizing for democracy in Thailand – we felt like we could make a difference. Elections were held, but after the coup, the sentiment changed. There was more censorship, and no criticism of the government was allowed, and so our programming had to change, too – we couldn’t be so direct. So even if we wanted to talk about democracy, we couldn’t use the word. We navigated this by talking about other countries, other cultures, which resonated with the context in Thailand. One program I remember from that time is ‘This Is Not Fiction’, which focused on political literature from other countries, including classics such as Fahrenheit 451, or Disgrace, to talk about what was going on here.
After 2014, with the political situation, I really felt like I wanted to quit – but that was when we did Sleepover, which brought in people from different disciplines, different approaches every month, exploring a new theme, with installations, workshops and public programs. One episode I remember particularly was the one organized by Apichatpong Weerasethakul, where he invited retired military officers to come and talk about their memories, their experiences, and then a civilian panel with people on the other side of the debate.  That got us in trouble! 

AT: And what was the reaction like? 

KP: Of course, the military came in to cancel our programs, and we’ve been under the scanner since. But what was really interesting was that it was giving a space for younger people, you know, people who have grown up with this mess, who I felt were a lot more aware.

AT: But since then, the number of spaces has grown exponentially.

KP: Yes, but I still think we lack a lot of cross-disciplinary practice. The spaces that are opening up are more or less in the same gallery model – we’re not seeing as many hybrid spaces, smaller non-profits, which I think is crucial for the scene. I think the N22 community is one of the exceptions to this, who’ve created an interesting constellation of politically aligned practices.
In Bangkok it’s easy to do one-off things, and I think a lot of younger people want to create a platform for their generation. I want to see them doing more ambitious things – we’re a small country, and it’s easy to connect with larger, more established figures, and create more collaborations.  

AT: But the Reading Room is one of the spaces where different kinds of communities can interact – significantly, it brings together a lot of people from the independent film scene. 

KP: Yes, and I think that the people in the independent film scene can often be more open-minded, with more radical Leftist politics, more open to interdisciplinary experiments than I see in the visual arts. The collective Film Virus, which consists of dedicated cinéphiles from different walks of life, came together through this space, and they’re about to complete 10 years, too. That’s how I started the film collection and archive, too. For me, it’s important that we are a free library, and that’s what keeps us going. It’s a statement – I want knowledge to be free, so there’s no membership feesor anything. I’d rather this be a more ideal or utopian space, because it’s horrible outside. This allows for many different kinds of communities to come together – people who come for the events will come back for the library, and vice versa, and a lot of people meet each other. It creates a timeless space that’s almost cut off from the outside world. 

AT: But recently, especially given the shift in the political climate in the country, your programming has become a lot more direct again. Last year, you completed the month ‘Solidarities’ program, connecting student movements around the region.

KP: Yes, Solidarities was a long-time dream. We were able to bring together activists from around Southeast Asia, from Myanmar, Malaysia, the Philippines, Timor L’Este, through a program of talks and screenings. It allowed us to think about the larger region, and the issues common to all of us, which is really not done enough. We received a great response from the politically engaged community, and I hope to make this program travel.

AT: And this is where you feel that the independent scene can intervene? 

KP: Yes, there’s definitely a lot of energy in the scene right now – more spaces than ever, and young curators stepping in. I think the lack of alternative education platforms and forums for criticism, is more apparent than ever, and the independent scene can definitely intervene in this situation. The future is definitely with the independent scene – the government is not going to help, and at this point, I’m not sure we want their help.