Artist Arin Rungjang and art critic David Teh will be Artistic Directors for the forth edition of the Thailand Biennale, set to take place on the island of Phuket in 2025.
Rungjang is a contemporary artist based in Bangkok and a co-founder of the As Yet Unnamed group. He has represented Thailand at the 55th Venice Biennale and Documenta 14, among others. Teh is a researcher and art critic with curatorial experience in various Biennales across Europe, Australia and Asia.
Additional curatorial support will come from curators Hera Chan and Marisa Phandharakrajadej. Chan is currently a curator in charge of Asia-Pacific art at Tate Modern, as well as a guest professor at the Korea National University of the Arts. Phandharakrajadej is a curator and lecturer, whose previous efforts includes organising the first Galleries’ Nights Bangsaen in Chonburi.
The theme, Eternal [Kalpa], focuses on the sustainable relationship between humans and nature amid the challenges of coexistence. This exploration will cover technology, resource use, ecological degradation, and exploitation under capitalism.
‘The theme aims to communicate the relationship between humans, nature, and time, in the context of ecological degradation, threats from technology, wars, the dangers posed by agricultural and large-scale industrial practices, and the heavy exploitation of nature without consideration for the diversity of people coexisting,’ Rungjang explained. ‘The problems stem from a human-centric view, where everything is seen as a tool for human service and meaning.’
The biennial is scheduled to take place from November 2025 through April 2026.
