Co-founder of inappropriate Book Club
By Duong Manh Hung

Ariane Sutthavong is involved in curating, writing and translation projects often at the intersection of art and politics in Bangkok. In 2020, she co-founded the inappropriate BOOK CLUB (iBC). It is an ongoing initiative centred around the collective reading and writing of texts supporting a third view of contemporary art in Thailand, beyond both the confines of the state and the interests of capitalism. She has curated exhibitions, new commissions, and programmes for Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo in Turin; RAW Labs in London; Bangkok Biennial, Gallery VER and Cartel Artspace in Bangkok. Her work has been published by ArtAsiaPacific, Bangkok Post, Gallery VER, MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum, OnCurating and Valiz. As the inappropriate BOOK CLUB, she has co-edited Common Dissent: Texts on Art and Politics in the Age of Radical Appropriation and presented at documenta fifteen.

In this conversation, Ariane speaks about her point of entry into the Bangkok art scene, her curatorial project ‘Seeking Permission’, and the development of iBC.

Friends and collaborators that make up the shared art space on Charoenkrung 26 Road in Bangkok. Image courtesy of Pongsakorn Yananissorn.

Paint me a picture of your first entry point into the Bangkok art scene, which is the 2018 Bangkok Biennial (BB), co-organised by three artists and an array of contributors. What were your observations during the biennial, and how has your experience there informed your current practice?

Just to provide a bit of context, there were three biennials happening in Thailand for the first time that year: government-run Thailand Biennale (TB); privately-funded Bangkok Art Biennale (BAB); and the artist-run Bangkok Biennial (BB). Co-founded by three anonymous artists, the ideas behind BB were decentralisation and challenging the “authority to access” in the art-world. Essentially, there were no gatekeepers; people were setting up their pavilions inside their bedrooms, hardware shops, temples, and market toilets. BB’s organisers created a Wiki Page—so everyone could register their pavilions and share information about their location and opening hours—as well as printed free posters and guidebooks that were distributed across the city. Thus, in terms of PR and communications, there were a lot of efforts to harmonise and give visibility to different projects, especially on social media. However, when it came to the actual running of each pavilion, BB left it open to the organisers. Despite its title, the biennial did not happen only in Bangkok. There were many “pavilions” outside of Bangkok, or even Thailand.

The whole biennial was a kind of creative direct action, to borrow a term from David Graeber and Yates McKee, whose book Strike Art we discussed in our first inappropriate BOOK CLUB—iBC. BB was for the most part unmediated. It did not seek permission from the state or art institutions.

At the time, I was writing feature stories for the Bangkok Post, so I chronicled quite a few of BB’s events. It was a dynamic period for the local art scene. It featured great, pocket-sized pavilions, as well as ambitious projects on par with those seen in more traditional biennials. I am thinking of ‘Postscripts’, an exhibition located in Bangkok’s first postal building which explored Thai modernism, curated by Charoen Contemporaries, a then budding team of artists and curators. There were also discursive platforms like Talk-Talk-Vilion, which became a precursor for the inappropriate BOOK CLUB.

I also helped out at Cartel Artspace in Bangkok, which had dedicated its year-long programming in 2018 to BB. Through Cartel, I became involved in a few projects for BB. One of them was an exhibition titled ‘Seeking Permission’, which was also my curatorial entry point.

I want to emphasise that the many people behind these varying initiatives were already active in their own enclaves before BB. So, what the biennial essentially did was to create an umbrella under which everyone could experiment, as well as come together and give visibility to practices which were somewhat marginalised in the national discourse on contemporary art. I met most of my current collaborators through the first iteration of BB. Of course, BB had weaknesses due to its limited resources, but I believe that it had managed to support political art projects, encourage discursive platforms, and distribute opportunities to as many groups as they could.

Poster for the exhibition ‘Seeking Permission’. Design by Theo Koutsaftis.

‘Seeking Permission’ brought together proposals by 12 artists, filmmakers, writers and performers. Image courtesy of Ariane Sutthavong.

I would like to dive further into ‘Seeking Permission’, which is an intriguing title given the regional context of art censorship and agency negotiation. What were your curatorial premises, and how did the exhibition pan out?

The concept was informed by the political situation in post-coup Thailand. There were several instances of censorship where film screenings had to be cancelled, while seminars and performances were heavily monitored. In the visual arts, I could recall incidents where the military came and asked artist Tada Hengsapkul to remove his works from Cartel, or when the photographs of Harit Srikhao were forcefully removed from Gallery VER. There was no clear-cut reasoning behind the process: it was entirely arbitrary and dangerously efficient.

As a response to this reality, I created a pseudo-administrative form and asked artists to imagine projects for which they would seek permission, and play around with the piece of paper that I created. Some had already been censored, while others were deemed potential targets. I approached not only visual artists, but also filmmakers, writers, and performance artists, and then I exhibited their proposal pieces—the ideas instead of actual objects. The most exciting part of ‘Seeking Permission’ for me was observing how artists responded to the form, because I intentionally came in with a very literal and rather constraining form, so I was happiest when people challenged the curatorial and administrative authority that I was embodying.

For example, artist Arnont Nongyao wrote his entire proposal about sonically capturing the passing between life and death. But he decided to write it entirely in Morse code, which is also a military tool. Filmmaker Anocha Suwichakornpong decided not to engage with the form itself and wrote her proposal on a blank paper instead. There were also artists who opted to disengage, like Tada Hengsapkul, who had been previously censored. While his name appeared as an exhibiting artist, his spot on the wall was blank. The idea of the disappearing work is also quite beautiful, as it holds the power to generate questions and imagine alternatives to what led to its vacancy.

Would you define your self-critical approach to ‘Seeking Permission’, as well as the artists’ collective resistance against the curatorial framework, manifestations of counter-hegemony? What is your relationship to this concept in the context of Thailand contemporary art?

I think we need to exercise caution in framing exhibitions or practices as counter-hegemonic, since hegemony itself is so context-specific. It is a situated alliance of dominating forces, which might not look the same in Bangkok, London or elsewhere. At a micro level, with forms of authority being different in every room that we are in, what remains intriguing for me is how power is exercised and how artists navigate these power structures in Thailand. I enjoy working in reaction to a specific framework or in the case of ‘Seeking Permission’ creating a framework to be challenged.

Nonetheless, when it comes to what can be considered counter-hegemonic practices in Thailand, I think there is a tendency to lump many initiatives that share somewhat similar visual codes or operative modes together. While all of them refuse mediation by the state or art institutions, each of them also responds to a very different set of goals and prefigured a very different vision of society. For example, the 2013-2014 Art Lane protests, part of the wider Shutdown Bangkok campaign, might have opposed Yingluck Shinawatra’s government. But they were very much aligned with hegemony, in this case, the country’s ruling classes and nationalist and royalist ideologies, and prompted as much as welcomed the 2014 military coup.

I am also wary of labels such as rebel or political artists, particularly after the coup, when pockets of the art scene in Thailand were framed by international media almost as “politically exotic others” to borrow a term that was coined by Rasheed Araeen in the 2000s but is sadly still applicable. When studying or working outside of Thailand, I found myself having to push back against the art world’s structure that tries to assign labels or confine us into boxes.

Sina Wittayawiroj, Lara Van Meeteren and Ariane Sutthavong. Photo taken on the opening night of ‘Talk-Talk-Vilion’, Bangkok Biennial, 2021. Image courtesy of Tanapong Wongtayan.

You have mentioned inappropriate Book Club (iBC) a few times already, so I want to know more about it. What are the foundations and objectives of iBC? How have you and other members of the book club carved out a public platform within the discourse of contemporary art in Thailand?

As I mentioned earlier, iBC was founded through the collaborations and friendships that I made during the first BB! Lara Van Meeteren and Bart Wissink, the other initiators of iBC are both academics from the Netherlands currently based in Hong Kong. I met them when they came to Bangkok and set up ‘Coming Soon’ as a pavilion that looked at biennalisation. I interviewed them at the time and we kept in touch, sharing ideas and often discussing texts or concepts. After many such exchanges, we came to the agreement that there might be other people who could be interested in having those discussions, and that we should find a platform to extend our coffee-table chats to people in Bangkok. In my opinion, there is not enough public discourse around the contemporary art scene here, and very important structural questions are dealt with in informal, semi-private conversations among friends or on social media. Artist Sina Wittayawiroj was enlisted later as a fourth organiser.

Fast forward to 2020, when we were about to launch iBC, during the second BB which took place against the backdrop of street protests, artist Paphonsak La-Or made a post on Facebook to call out artists who were partaking in the protest while also exhibiting in the Bangkok Art Biennale, bankrolled by ThaiBev, one of the military junta’s financial supporters. The post quickly went viral, incurring nearly 100 comments where many crucial points were made about censorship, accountability, or the process of negotiation with hegemonic structures in Thailand. It was purely coincidental that iBC ‘s upcoming launch aligned with this incident, so I would say posts like this one solidified our determination to build a public platform, where structural issues do not become gossip or personal attacks, where we can discuss larger issues that affect us all in the art.

“In my opinion, there is not enough public discourse around the contemporary art scene here, and very important structural questions are dealt with in informal, semi-private conversations among friends or on social media. ”

‘Talk-Talk-Vilion’ presented as part of Bangkok Biennial, 2021. It opened with an inappropriate BOOK CLUB (iBC) discussion with Yates McKee and Sina Wittayawiroj. Image courtesy of Tanapong Wongtayan.

How many discussions has iBC organised since 2020? Can you tell me in detail about one or two discussions that have really stuck with you?

We held eight during BB in 2021, which followed the theme of art and politics in the age of radical appropriation. In other words, how to navigate art and politics when hegemony seizes contemporary art to forward its agenda. Since January 2023, we have been holding discussions at our new space in Bangkok examining issues pertaining to labour and value in the cultural sector.

During BB, we had a session titled ‘Can artists collectively hold institutions accountable?’, where artist Korakrit Arunanondchai generously shared his experience pulling out from the Whitney Biennial, as well as Ahmet Öğüt, who talked about his similar experience with the Biennale of Sydney. That discussion struck an alarm, because if artists of such clout face such pressures in negotiating with biennial institutions, then what chance do the rest of us have? Then, there was another session which looked at neoliberalism, where speaker David Hodge discussed the need to redefine what success looks like in the art world, outside of the linear trajectory of constant exhibition-residency-award. And I think that idea stuck with a lot of us.

It is hard to choose. I think most of all I am happy about the sessions that involved many people from the region. We had a terrific discussion with Donna Miranda and Angelo V. Suarez on art institutions as instruments of hegemony, and a very poignant exchange with the artist, researcher, curator and writer wen yau (sic) titled ‘What happens after the protest dies down?’. It was so nice to see that iBC could become a site for regional gathering, solidarity alignment, and collective ownership of knowledge.

Can you walk me through the semi-structure of an iBC discussion? What are some strategies which iBC has come up with to ensure that you can navigate the risk of canonisation or gatekeeping?

For each session, we have a particular text which we already translated into Thai and made available in advance. However, as we do not want our translations to become a new canon, they are honestly there to serve as the basis for discussion. We invite people to disagree with it, or question why we even chose the text.

During the BB, we invited a local facilitator to moderate the discussion, before we brought in the authors to expand on their text. We aimed at inviting facilitators who not only could explain the text, but also really shape the direction of the conversation in a context-specific manner, so the first hour of the discussion was usually the meatiest! The sessions we held at our space have been far more casual, with all participants intervening to comment or raise new points. We would be nowhere if there were not people engaging with the materials and driving these discussions in truly meaningful ways.

We also tried to diversify the texts we select, and not just have Western canons or papers written by academics. In particular, for the sessions on labour and value, we had several texts written by activist groups such as Din Deng or the Concerned Artists of the Philippines. We aim to have a variety of voices, even if the texts were primarily written in English, as it is our shared language. When we were working towards our first publication Common Dissent: Texts on Art and Politics in the Age of Radical Appropriation, we emailed several people we had crossed paths with, asking them for recommendations. Thanks to this collaborative effort, and the generosity of these people, texts or authors that were not initially on our radar were brought to our attention and integrated into the project. We also worked with numerous translators, and could never have realised this publication without them.

Screening of Okui Lala’s video work ‘Journey With Desi’ at the inappropriate BOOK CLUB’s new space in Bangkok, 2023. Image courtesy of Ariane Sutthavong.

Does iBC receive support from external funding bodies to run its sessions and publish? How do you think this aspect may compromise the objectives of your book club?

I think there is no such thing as a completely autonomous structure, and it is always a negotiation. We are happy of course when iBC receives funding, because we can pay our collaborators and thus organise larger-scale projects. We are lucky to operate in a tight-knit ecosystem with other collectives Speedy Grandma, Namkheun and Prachachee Library, as well as other individual contributors. In the art world, so many of us help each other out for free; so when we do receive money, our priority is to redistribute the resources we have and pay those people.

Our objectives are clear: to decentralise the production and dissemination of knowledge. Thus, we are striving to be as transparent as possible.

“In the art world, so many of us help each other out for free; so when we do receive money, our priority is to redistribute the resources we have and pay those people. ”

Common Dissent: Texts on Art and Politics in the Age of Radical Appropriation: iBC’s first publication bringing together translated texts on art and politics, which served as a basis for the collective’s first round of discussions in 2021. Image cour — *Common Dissent: Texts on Art and Politics in the Age of Radical Appropriation*: iBC’s first publication bringing together translated texts on art and politics, which served as a basis for the collective’s first round of discussions in 2021. Image courtesy of Tanapong Wongtayan.

Tell me more about the book Common Dissent. How did it come about? Which were the writings and translations included there?

It so happened that the idea for Common Dissent: Texts on Art and Politics in the Age of Radical Appropriation—which was the basis for our 8 discussions during BB—came about as Thailand became embroiled in protests in 2020 and 2021. As we were selecting texts to translate, we started incorporating writings that could resonate with that particular context. Among those were Yates McKee’s introduction to his book Strike Art, or Colectivo Situaciones’s beautiful ‘Politicising Sadness’.

The protests did not only inform our choices of texts but also shaped the book visually. We invited Sina Wittayawiroj, who is a visual artist and illustrator, to join our project. Collectively, we were interested in the figure of the “artist-as-organiser” put forward by Yates McKee in protest movements not only creating visual materials but also initiating actions and prefiguring possible futures. Sina’s practice encompasses all of these things. Sina curated a selection of images celebrating the varied forms of expression circulated often anonymously during the months of protests, such as memes, posters, fonts and merch. All in all, I think we would have published Common Dissent regardless, but the protests really pushed it in a new direction.

It has been fascinating so far listening to your practice, and what a wonderful collaborative fruit of labour Common Dissent is! On that note, I would like to wrap up by asking you about future projects, so our readers have something to look forward to.

So iBC has begun working on a new publication compiling texts that look at labour and values in the cultural sector. Some are quite theory-based, while others stem from activist practices and initiatives, or are collectively-authored. We want to combine these different types of writings to help us think on how to improve our working conditions. One novelty is that we also commissioned a few pieces of writing stemming from the region for this upcoming book.

We will also be initiating a collective writing project—shared with other groups—based on Stephen Wright’s text Towards a Lexicon of Usership. There will be a lot of discussion, writing, and translation in store for us in the upcoming years.