Fak Kha Non: The Other Side is the first iteration of the Of Times and Places Art Platform, an initiative by Warin Lab Nomad that uses contemporary art to investigate, document and open conversations around cultural heritage, community, well-being and urban transformation. The site-specific project takes place across seven historic venues in Khlong San, one of Bangkok’s oldest and most layered districts, on the west bank of the Chao Phraya River.
Curated by Nakrob Moonmanas (Artistic Curator), Sukontip Nakasem (Co-Curator) and Dr. Graiwoot Chulphongsathorn, the project brings together 40 artists and collectives, 4 creative studios and community collaborators whose practices respond to the histories, people and materials of each site. It also includes works created with patients at Somdet Chaopraya Institute of Psychiatry and works by Art Brut practitioners, artists living with mental health conditions who work outside formal art training.
As Bangkok’s historic neighbourhoods face the pressures of development, displacement and time, the project asks what lies on the other side of that transformation, and what must be carried forward. The works span painting, sculpture, installation, textile, photography, film, virtual reality and sound. More than 25 public programmes, including talks, neighbourhood walks, boat trips, workshops, film screenings and educational activities, will be announced in the coming weeks. Admission is free across all seven venues.
Highlights by venue:
Somdet Chaopraya Institute of Psychiatry: painting, photography, film, moving image, sculpture and participatory art on the district’s cultural layers and on mental healthcare, alongside archives from families rooted in the area.
Princess Mother Memorial Park: outdoor sculpture and conceptual installations featuring sound, on sense of place and collective memory.
Wat Thong Thammachat Worawihan: sculptures, floral installations and works made from plastic waste, in Thailand’s only remaining throne-style dhamma pulpit hall.
Wat Thong Noppakhun: sculpture, painting and immersive installation on stillness and on the transient and the eternal, in a hall that has kept Buddhist manuscripts for generations.
Anongkaram Public Library: architectural drawings, sculpture and painting on the legacy of Chuang Bunnag and key moments in Khlong San’s history.
Nomad Art Residency Bangkok: textile, moving image and mixed media works on the site’s past as a garment factory on Bangkok’s leather street, and on Khlong San’s Indian and Muslim communities.
Thang Nguan Hah Heritage House: poetry and an experimental garden at a Chinese heritage site in the neighbourhood where legendary poet and artist Tang Chang was born.
information provided by event organizer
