AIMING TO GET people thinking and creating, the Bangkok Edge Festival, Thailand’s first and only “ideas festival”, is taking place today and tomorrow – noon to midnight both days – at Museum Siam, Chakrabongse Villas and the Rajini School.
MR Narisa Chakrabongse, one of the organisers, declares an abiding fascination with art and culture festivals around the world.
“Last year I went to Wonderfruit in Pattaya and it was really exciting, and I wondered why Bangkok didn’t have anything like it, with all the tourists coming here. Thailand has only a very few festivals related to culture and literature.”
Bangkok Edge will have seminars led by well-known authors and thinkers from home and abroad, including Jung Chang, Hyeon-seo Lee and architect Duangrit Bunnag, and workshops on drawing cartoons and making diaries and photo books.
The evenings will feature performances by musicians Hugo, Greasy Cafe, Ornaree, Palmy and Paradise Bangkok Molam International. And there’s a kid’s zone at Museum Siam.
“I think events like Bangkok Edge are a social necessity, because we have so few places where people can express their creative thinking,” says Rames Promyen, director-general of the National Discovery Museum Institute.
Duangrit says the festival addresses the need for Thais to better understand “what the culture really is we live in at present”. He plans to talk about the Bangkok of the future.
“This will be a place where people have the freedom to express their own ideas and talk about creative work, such as literature, architecture and music. As the name suggests, it’s about being ‘on the verge of the irrational’, or waek naew, its Thai name.”
Duangrit too was impressed by Pattaya‘s Wonderfruit festival last year and also mentions the annual Burning Man event usually held on vast flatland in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada in the US. “It’s an experiment in building an art community and has drawn up to 70,000 people. That’s so great!”
City people, he notes, are always finding fresh opportunities for leisure travel and, by getting out into the countryside, they learn more about their own culture, in addition to appreciating the beautiful natural scenery among the mountains and rivers. That’s the type of cultural appreciation that Bangkok Edge is aiming to foster, Duangrit says.
“Contemporary culture is whatever’s related to our daily lives,” he says. “In Thai society, though, contemporary culture is limited in scope. Every time someone says ‘culture’ we immediately think of ‘Thai culture’ and set out to promote it. That’s okay, but it’s not contemporary culture. I think it’s time to appreciate the originality of our present-day culture, all the fashion, movies and music. We talk about these things in commercial terms, but rarely as stemming from the roots of our culture. So the Bangkok Edge Festival will be a good chance to talk about those roots and alternative viewpoints on culture.”
Rames points out that Thailand has never had an “ideas festival” that draws on the whole array of the arts and entertainment, from film to food.
“This is a way to draw people’s attention to – and give them direct experience with – the unusual and creative thinking offered by local and foreign artists and authors. They can help Thais adopt a more international way of thinking.”
Rames declines to hazard a guess about the likely mindset of festival-goers after the event. “It’s like our educational curriculum – we don’t know what the students will become after they graduate. But, as Steve Jobs said, ‘You can’t connect the dots looking forward – you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.'”
Rames believes the festival concept ties in nicely with “Museum Siam’s main mission, which is to present our culture in a creative way – the way of life, history, ideological beliefs – along with those of other civilisations. The idea is to raise awareness, enhance creative thinking and offer inspiration to do something in the future.
“These days we live in a kind of consumer society, where the people are all users and not doers, consuming what the media offer but lacking in creative thinking. As a result our youth lack the skills to develop something new and to innovate. Young people will be driving force for our country in the future, and yet there are few stages for them to show off their creative thinking. Museum Siam is an open space for everybody to search for knowledge, to discover their intellectual purpose.”
The Bangkok Edge Festival will try to do the same this weekend, presenting ideas and activities that are both challenging and fun.
The historic area around Ta Tien will be full of sound and colour, where the public imagination is invited to run free. Jung Chang will be there, the author of “Wild Swans”, her autobiography about life in China, which has sold more than 13 million copies. Other writers present will include Kevin Kwan (author of “Crazy Rich Asians”), Hyeon-seo Lee (“The Girl with Seven Names”), Veeraporn Nidhiprapha (2015 SEA Write winner “The Blind Earthworm in the Labyrinth”), John Burdett (“Bangkok 8”) and Christopher Moore (multiple crime novels, many starring the popular detective Vincent Calvino). Duangrit will discuss his “Bangkok Manifesto”.
Claire Keefe Fox, author of “Siamese Tears”, and Tim and Virginia Webster (“Yangon Echoes”) will conduct writing workshops. BK magazine columnist Kathy MacLeod (“That’s What She Said”) will show how stories can be told through graphic art. Xavier Comas (“The House of the Raja”) will demonstrate the fine art of photo books. Robert Carmack and Morrison Polkinghome (“Burma Cookbook”) and celebrity chef Duangporn Songwisawa will share secrets of the creative kitchen.
Thai alternative and country music come alive in the documentary “Y/Our Music”, directed by Waraluck Hirunyasettawat Every and David Reeve, to be screened during the festival. Philip Jablon, who photographs the old stand-alone cinemas from the 1960s and ’70s in Southeast Asia will have an exhibition.
Narisa’s son Chulachak “Lek” Chakrabongse – known as Hugo in his musical incarnation – has put together an impressive roster of song talent for the festival stages.
“In keeping with the word ‘edge’ in the festival’s name, I looked for professional and emerging artists who have distinctive characteristics,” he says.
“Palmy is a pop artist with an unmistakable voice. Paradise Bangkok has DJ Maft Sai, who scratches vinyl, and they’ve toured the world, performing in almost every country in Europe and at every festival. Foreigners love this band and their Isaan music, with the pin and khaen in the rhythm section.”
On the Web:
www.BangkokEdge.com.
This source first appeared on The Nation Life.