Propaganda amid the protests? Thailand’s Bangkok Art Biennale stirs debate among critics and participants
- The event offers a place of reflection during the daily rallies, according to its artistic director, and highlights taboo-breaking work by local and international artists
- But to some, it is helping the kingdom’s rulers maintain a pretence of normality as calls to reform the monarchy and remove the government grow louder
The BAB is paid for by some of Thailand’s most powerful family-owned businesses and has received the support of government ministries. Such ties to the establishment are not an asset to an art exhibition, especially in places where cultural activities are subject to censorship by an authoritarian government. The success of BAB depends on its ability to use art to create original and alternative narratives about society and not parrot the views of those in power.
Apinan Poshyananda, the BAB’s chief executive officer and artistic director, knows that. He is a seasoned navigator of the treacherous cultural landscape in a country with strict lèse-majesté laws and an ongoing crackdown on press freedom. An art historian and former senior government official in the Ministry of Culture, he has managed to keep the biennale’s backers on board while being openly critical of the current government’s “nationalistic jingoism” and describing the cultural ministry as a “propaganda machine”.
This year’s BAB, which runs until next February, was a difficult one to pull off, Poshyananda says. Many of the 82 participating artists live outside Thailand, but it had to go ahead in spite of pandemic-related travel restrictions and a lack of tourists, he tells This Week in Asia.
“We are a young biennale,” he says. “To postpone it will mean missing the rhythm of holding it every two years. We want to give assurance and confidence that Bangkok is a place to come when the pandemic is over.”
As for the protests raging on the streets, Poshyananda says they “add more spice” to the biennale’s theme, “Escape Route”.
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“There are often protests just outside the main venue, the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, where Yoko Ono’s symbols of peace and activism are displayed,” he says, referring to the Japanese artist’s video recordings of her performances of Cut Piece in 1965 and 2003, in which she invites members of the audience to cut off and keep pieces of the clothes she had on. “So outside the centre, people are expressing themselves in a way that sometimes becomes art actions. Inside the art space, they can reflect on what’s going on outside.”