How2Soup update 1

How to soup

As part of La Fete 2007 during June 2007, the Jim Thompson Foundation initiated a design workshop focusing on the cultures related to soup of the Thai and the French. The workshop titled 'the Place & the Plate' involved a collaboration between Thai emerging designers and established French/Thai designers, including Cédric Rogot, Anne Xiradakis, Rachaporn Choochuey and Pim Sudhikam.

'HOW TO SOUP' or in Thai "ต้มยำทำแกง",
an extension of 'the Place & the Plate' and a part of Bangkok Design Festival 07,
is an exhibition which put the creative outputs of this culturally dynamic workshop on display, along with new works by 40 ceramic virgins from the department of industrial design.

venue: Design Center, Chulalongkorn Univerisity (near Triam-Udomsuka School bus stop)
date: 15 Oct - 15 Nov
The exhibition is kindly supported by Vivabaord, Flexiplan,
Q-Ads, Mor Mor Creative Forum, Art4D and the Jim Thompson Foundation

Paper Ranger Exhibition

Mormor Creative Forum in collaboration with Volunteerspirit.org
proudly presents



an exhibition that will tell you how to be an action hero, who can really take actions that really matter to save our planet. That is to re-use the paper we use in our everyday life.

Log on www.volunteerspirit.org for more info.
Venue: Industrial Design Gallery , Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok
(near the Triam-Udomsuka busstop).

The exhibition was kindly supported by
Practika and Q-Ads.

Opening: Come & Gone: Design for Change

Panta's Art

Come & Gone: Design for Change

A community art project by Thai artist, Wasinburee Supanichvoraparch and local communities from the Old Snow Hill Canal area

Exhibition at UCE Birmingham Margaret Street Building, Birmingham on1-9 September 2007 – FREE ADMISSION

Private View on 31 August 2007 at 6-9 – FREE ADMISSION

'Come & Gone: Design for Change' is an exhibition that records therecent dialogues and discussions on creating a sense of community. The project centres on urban intervention using public art to explore future visions and a realisation of being a community along Old Snow Hill canal area between St. Paul's Square and Snow Hill Queensway.

Thai artist, Wasinburee Supanichvoraparch (b. 1971, Ratchaburi) created an artwork for a new commission in the form of an installation and graphic design using visual information that relates to the community. Even though, Supanichvoraparch is both an artist and a ceramic designer, he has a similar intention to use art for social improvement in both disciplines. It is a challenge for him to work with the community using diverse media, apart from ceramic.

The project examines how the environment could be improved so as to encourage more people to use the public spaces, for example the towpaths. In order to benefit the public space and encourage people to realise who they are and where they are living at the time the artworks amplifies people's voices as to explore what social problems need to be solved in the future.

During the summer local people have been asked to contribute a personal object – something that for them represents their experiences of living in this very unique but changing geographical area of
Birmingham. All the peoples' objects are collected into "Boxes of Memories" which represents each person's identity. At the same time, all found objects, which signify the identity of the local community, are gathered and recorded. More over, what remains in the community as a link between the people and the site through the changing time are displayed as a visual presentation of texts and numbers.

Manipa Jayawan, the project curator said "Even if it is just a beginning, what we are doing now is to encourage people in the community to take part in improving their own community or even people from different places. And we have planned to extend this intention all around the world".

Notes to the Editor:
1. The exhibition will be held from 1 September - 9 September 2007 in [at] the seminar room, Margaret Street Building, UCE Birmingham. Admission is free and there is full disabled access. Private View: Friday 31 August: 6-9 pm. Exhibition 1-9September: 10am – 5pm weekdays, 10am – 4pm weekends.
2. 'Come & Gone: Design for Change' has been organised by Thai curator, Manipa Jayawan. This is her final project of study for the MA Contemporary Curatorial Practice course at UCE Birmingham. She is interested in organising innovative public art projects that use creative design strategies.
3. For more information contact Manipa Jayawan: manifah@hotmail.com, +44(0)78094-72507

Space of 10 Light Years

March 31 - May 26, 2007 Mor Mor Creative Forum in collaboration with Shanghai Studio, China presented a phographic exhibition 'SPACE OF 10 LIGHT YEARS:
Be Pattanopas's sculptures in images' as part of SHANGHAI STUDIO's ART EVENT NR. 9

along with two other exhibitions,
POINT OF VIEW: exciting digital shorts from Bangkok
curated by Jung-Chul Hur,

and THE APPEARANCE OF FASCINATION: 10 blow-ups from Hanspeter Ammann's current book project.

Space of 10 Light Years can now be viewed on the Net.
CLICK HERE!!!!
News on The Blog of Bloom
News on the Manifesto ???: the China's sexiest art archive blog
News on SmartShanghai.com
News on My Potential, My Passion blog

Want to Be Rich: an installation by Pornprasert Yamazaki

After the frantic splashes of the Thai Songkran fest Ryo, Pornprasert Yamazaki, who showed with Mor Mor Creative Forum in CRACK: the magic clay can do, had another ultra ambitious installation at Whitespace Gallery, on the second floor of Lido cinema, Siam Square, Bangkok.

The whole gallery was filled with statues of pathetic doglike creatures, whose faces resembled the artist himself. Some had two penises, which made them look even as desperate as the Greek mythical creature, the Chimera. Ryo collaborated with a scent designer to create a disgustingly pungent perfume, resembling what you can smell in those hedonistic massage palours, which sprouted all over the sin city of Bangkok since the arrive of the American troops when the Vietnam war broke out. This is Ryo's ongoing criticism on the relentless expansion of consumerism and gloabalised economy, which affects every aspect of Thai society. In other contexts, you may or may not be conscious of this affect, but once you was in Ryo's installation, one certainly would.

In just one phrase, "very Chuwit indeed!"

News on Asia Art Archive
Ryo's works on Whitespace Gallery site
Review in Flash Art (coming soon)

A Mormorist in Pechakucha BKK 3

On the evening of Saturday 26th May, one of Mormorists - Ohm (Pitt Matrliam), was one of the 17 daring ones, who presented their slides while talking under the Pechakucha's rules, which are...
1. 20 slides only
2. each slide are shown for only 20 seconds.
3. so each speakers has 6:40 mins only.

Ohm presented his inventive Kanto movies, which were his collages of stills from existing movies, with some words and his oral sound effects, and a twist of a fabulous drag queen who sang a heart-breaking gay anthem. The archive of this event has not been posted on the Pechakucha Bangkok official site yet, but surely it will be. Or else look out for the next issue of Bioscope or Happening magazines.

Coming Closer

One of Mor Mor Creative Forum great supporters, Wasinburee Supanichworapaj, just had a fabulous group exhibition, which featured Thai and German contemporary artists. Wasinburee himself showed both enchanting photographic works and many sarcastically ambitious ceramic sculptures. Look out for more details of the exhibition at

www.be-focused.blogspot.com or log on the following sites.
COMING CLOSER site
ข้อมูลนิทรรศการ คลิกดูได้ตรงนี้
Asia Art Archive
DaimlerChrysler News Archive

CRACK News&Reviews

Click the following links to see news and reviews of
CRACK: the magic clay can do.

Art4D blog (news)
Free Form magazine (news)
Art4D magazine (review in Thai)
art4d.com (review in English)

Meet all who cracked with Mor Mor

click to CRACK, click to CRACK, click to CRACK

See all the magic clay can do

Click on the image to view all 11 pieces by 11 artists/designers
who showed in CRACK: the magic clay can do. For further details on each artist or designer, just choose his/her name below and click.

• Anuchai Sripoocharoentong
• Be Takerng Pattanopas
• Emsophian Benjametha
• Pim Sudhikam
• Pitt Martliam
• Pornphun Suthiprapa
• Pornprasert Yamazaki
• Pratya Raktabutr
• Nimawadee Krainara
• Tikumporn Engchaun
• Udom Udomsrianan

CRACK: opening night

CRACK: the magic clay can do was opened by one of Thailand most renowned ceramic artists, Surojana Setabutra. We would like to note that on that same night there was the opening of the National Gallery sculpture exhibition, which included her own major pieces; and Surojana was supposed to be there. But she accepted our invitation, came to CRACK, and gave us a wonderfully sincere and encouraging opening speech.



above: Guests gathered for Surojana Setabutra's opening speech; behind them was Pitt Matrliam's installation.
left: Surojana Setabutra with CRACK's accidental curator, Be Pattanopas. Surojana spent more than a few hours at the show. She kindly told us she would be deligthed if there are more of CRACKs in the future.














above: Guests were invited to put on surgical rubber gloves and hold Pim Sudhikam's Streptococcus smoke-fired ceramic cocoons, which made subtle cracking noises.

below left: Wasinburi Supanichworapaj of the internationally renowned Tao Hong Tai Pottery(in black shirt), CRACK's main supporter, talking to Pratya Raktabutr and Udom Udomsrianan while sitting on Udom's pieces.






above right: Anuchai Sripoocharoentong's pieces was one of the most favourite in the show, obviously.

below left: Emsophian Benjametha with his wall piece made of raw paper clay.







above right: Design students from Chulalongkorn University with Tikumpon Engchuan's translucent porcelain inspired by sea creatures.














above: Varavit Siripaktr of Panpuri (sitting) with Pornphun Suthiprapa's Imperfect Falling.

left: Nimawadee Krainara and her cracked clay imbedded with memories.




above: A viewe, mesmerised by Pitt Matrliam's installation.
below left: CRACK viewed from Pornprasert Yamasaki's installation, which comprised of ceramic mortars he patiently acquired from the Northeast of Thailand. A commentary on the inevitable influence of capitalism and globalization even in the remotest region of the country.


above right: Julia Kingston-Davies of Raffle Design Institute exploring Be Pattanopas's Erogenous Landscape.

B4 we cracked our CRACK

The space we used for CRACK: the magic clay can do was a warehouse/loft space, which had nevery been intended for exhibition purposes, let alone ever been used before. The space was virtually empty. Lots of windows and small bare brick walls with no ceilings, just bare roof structures and insulations. The venue administrators did not provide us with any exhibition facilities, esp. plinths or white walls, except for a small one at the centre of the space.






















But we saw that as an opportunity to make our curatorial statement - a criticism towards most established galleries and museum in Thailand.

We wanted the arts to occupy this space by rejecting all references to vitrine white-cube formal gallery cliché. The obvious solutions were to place objects on the bare concrete floor, or to suspend them from the ceiling.

We have to admit that CRACK: the magic clay can do had a very humble beginning to the point that we were worried that we wouldn't have enough work to hold the show together in such an enormous space. We were wrong, however.








It turned out that we nearly run out of space.
Thanks to all of our participating artists/designers, who, as the opening came closers and closers, had more and more energy to inject into their works and the whole show. Their works expanded both in terms of the sizes and numbers they wanted to show, as well as the spaces their works required.

Anyway, we went through all that. And the outcome stunned viewers who came to see the show, on the opening night, and after. An unused space of Baan Silom was magically transformed into a very cool space.

Well, despite the soaring heat of Bangkok's Valentine's night!!!
To see more images before we cracked CRACK, click here.

CRACK's guest artist: Udom Udomsrianan

Since the beginning of the new millennium Udom Udomsrianan has become well-known worldwide for his furniture design branded Planet 2001, esp. the Threesome Noodles chair. Udom's works were included in many exhibitions all over America and Europe, including the prestigious Centre George Pompidou.

Initially trained in fine arts from Silpakorn University, Udom now works both as designer and artist, with his wonderful sense for forms. The work Udom will show in CRACK is an installation of over 20 ceramic pieces manufactured at the infamous Tao-Hong-Tai pottery.