This project grows out of a long discussion amongst a group of Bangkok-based artists. While they work in a wide range of media – from conceptual and installation art to painting, sculpture and photomedia – what they share is place, history and a determination to continue their practice here, despite the lack of support structures for contemporary art. These artists enjoyed the first stage of Bangkok’s contemporary art awakening, receiving their first opportunities in the vibrant experimental scene of

the 1990s. Most were participants in the exhibition As Yet Unnamed [Not yet in progress] (at Project 304, 1999), from which this project draws its title. Since then, however, the development of venues and organizations has stalled. Contemporary art remains invisible to most of the city’s people. With the country’s recent political chaos comes yet another return to conservatism and conformity in the arts. Nevertheless, these artists forge ahead with their work, determined to maintain their alternative – and often critical – perspectives on contemporary Thai society.

At the same time, artists have begun to take advantage of new media and online social networks to promote their work, discovering the advantages, but also the limitations, of these mainly commercial channels. In the absence of independent arts organizations, who will build the independent channels to nourish and support artists’ practice? The only foreseeable answer, for Bangkok, is for the artists to build it themselves.

We believe that our art emerges from our communities and our society, and must therefore be addressed to that society, starting with our close relationships, at the ‘village’ level, then carried beyond to the wider public. While it may be necessary, for various reasons, to develop our practice as individuals, we believe that art should not be produced and presented on an individual basis only.