Led by co-curators Melissa Leventon and Alisa Saisavetvaree, the talk will illuminate the fruitful two-decade relationship between Her Majesty Queen Sirikit and French couturier Pierre Balmain, which began during the preparations for Their Majesties’1960 state visit to Europe and the United States.

The collaboration resulted in a stylish, elegant and regal wardrobe that made Her Majesty recognised as one of the best-dressed women in the world. A curator-led exhibition tour will follow the talk and is available in English, with a brief summary in Thai. Admission is Bt250 and seating is limited, so advance registration is required.

Book your seat by calling (02) 225 9420 and (02) 225 9430 extensions 0 or 245, or visit http://www.Facebook.com/qsmtthailand.

This is the ninth exhibition by the Bangkok native who has earned a reputation for his colourful and meaningful paintings, which he describes as his way of displaying pleasure and displeasure with a situation. The highlight of the show is “Emotional of Miss You DAD”, which portrays the sorrow of an entire nation at the death of His Majesty, the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

The exhibition runs through February 7 and is open daily from 10am to 8pm.

Find out more at (02) 254 2384.

Running through February 24, the photographs reflect the present faded state of Thailand’s historical memories, represented by the Democracy and Victory Monuments and King Taksin and King Rama I Memorials.

In the Thai context of waiting for the return to democracy, his photographs of the Democracy Monument may inspire hope or despair according to the viewer’s interpretation. Against the night sky, at times blurry and then in sharp focus but without detail definition, his non-naturalistic images of blinding light on the golden replica of the constitution convey tall white shapes invoking disembodied spirits.

Find out more at http://www.KataSangkhae.com.

This golden collection, which is associated with good fortune, is a perfect gift for the Chinese New Year, especially for this Year of the Dog.

Representing loyalty and honesty, this stunning Dog Crystal Creation displays 849 facets of golden crystal. The curved clear crystal base is inspired by the shape of the Huang Jade fans seen in Chinese art. The clear crystal base features the Swarovski logo and the Chinese character for dog. If all 12 signs are collected, the Crystal Creations will form a circle symbolising the endless cycle of life.

Bring luck into your life with the Money Tree, which evokes the shape of bonsai and pine trees. It features clouds of “coin” leaves hanging from the branches. The use of auspicious golden-coloured crystal adds an extra element of good fortune to the piece. Designed in collaboration with artists from the Beijing academy, it’s a wonderful showcase of Swarovski expertise.

Set a lucky tone in your home with the stunning Lucky Bamboo creation, representing fortuity and strength. It is crafted in golden crystal, an auspicious colour and placed on a clear crystal base.

To welcome the year of the dog, Swarovski also unveils the Little Dog collection. The brilliant and playful collection features the versatile Little Dog Pierced Earring Jackets which features cute Pointiage dogs in black and clear crystal. The earrings can be styled as simple studs or added as dangling elements to dial up the glamour. The Little Dog Pendant sparkles with Pointiage crystals, which showcase Swarovski artistry at its very best. Add a little fun to your look with these matching earrings and pendant to welcome the dog year in style.

Nadia, who lived in the US from 2009-09, chronicled the lives of the people involved in the downtown theatre and art communities in downtown Manhattan. Some of her photos were picked and published by the New York Times, Timeout Magazine and other local media outlets.

The photos were taken while she learned first-hand about the world of PR at Jonathan Slaff & Associates. The experience exposed her to communications and public relations, as well as New York City’s art scene. She spent time with theatre communities and experienced subcultures in the Big Apple.

She owns Nadia-K , a public relations and marketing company which is based on human interest. The aim is to connect, portray, and promote the beauty people’s creativity.

Find out more at Facebook.com/10mlcafegallery.

OPERA SIAM, established in 2001 and virtually the most active opera company in Southeast Asia, has seemed a bit off the radar for a couple of years. Major productions have concentrated on the critically acclaimed 10-part “Lives of the Buddha” series. Other productions, while adventurous, were not of standard repertoire works.

Malcolm Williamson’s “The Happy Prince” and Holocaust-memorial productions of chamber works like “The Diary of Anne Frank” and “Brundibar” enhanced Opera Siam’s profile as a wide-ranging company willing to tackle rarities and unconventional choices.

But there hasn’t been a “standard repertoire” production since the much-admired “Magic Flute” a couple of years ago.

Artistic director Somtow Sucharitkul has embarked on a major facelift for the 17-year-old company. The 17th season kicked off late last year at the Thailand Cultural Centre with the most “standard repertoire” piece of all, Puccini’s “La Boheme”.

The production was spectacular in every way – conceptually, musically and in its direction. With an outstanding international cast and musicianship of a high international level from conductor Trisdee Na Patalung and the Siam Philharmonic, this was a production that could have graced any major European house.

With the Paris Opera presenting a “La Boheme” this season – controversially set in outer space, with Rodolfo in a space suit and stark lunar landscapes – it was a relief to find a production actually set in Paris. This Paris was not the Paris of the original, though, but an homage to Chagall’s Paris of the 1920s.

Somtow, who both designed and directed the production, managed to create the effect of actually being inside a Chagall painting by making the set a collage of many of the French Impressionist’s most iconic masterpieces. Strikingly lit by Ryan Attig and with colour-coordinated costumes by Natthawan Santiphab, this was one of best “look and feel” “Bohemes” this reviewer has ever seen.

Somtow directed with a light touch mostly, it appears, allowing the singers’ chemistry to speak for itself.

And it seems that success was all in the casting here. Mimi was sung by Nancy Yuen, who made Puccini sound like lieder – subtle and nuanced, with the requisite power unleashed only when necessary. Israel Lozano was a passionate Rodolfo, radiating charm. Simon Meadows was an engaging Marcello, singing magnificently.

Damian Whiteley as Colline was suitably introspective. Newcomer Panuwat Phiansa was a hilarious hyperactive Schaunard. Flanders-based Thai soprano Nadlada Thamtanakom was a silky-voiced Musetta, as vulnerable as she was streetwise.

The star of the evening was undoubtedly Trisdee Na Patalung, who offered a completely fresh, energetic take on Puccini’s score, blowing away the cobwebs of convention and pulling a glorious rush of sound from the mostly very young Siam Philharmonic Orchestra.

Probably one of the fastest “Bohemes” in the last hundred years, divested of much sentimental indulgence, this was a performance that served the drama first.

The first scenes were done with a light touch, enabling the final tragedy to be moving, not mawkish.

Opera Siam has announced it will do all of Puccini’s operas over the next few years, with both “Madame Butterfly” and “Gianni Schicchi” in the cards this season. Not neglecting the epic “DasJati”, two episodes of Somtow’s mega-music drama will premiere as well.

The term “world-class” is much overused in Bangkok, but this “Boheme” truly put Opera Siam in that category.

PERFORMING artists and producers often associate the suffix “ AM” with “Arts Market” and there are several of those in this region where they meet and discuss new projects or make business deals for existing projects. Coming in the next month alone are APAM – the Australian Performing Arts Market, Brisbane and TPAM: Performing Arts Meeting in Yokohama. The latter, interestingly, was originally short for Tokyo Performing Arts Market but to reflect the fact that the commercial value has been toned down and that it has a new location, it’s added the subtitle while keeping the already famous acronym. And of course, there’s also our very own BIPAM, where the AM also stands for Arts Meeting, the inaugural edition of which has held last November.

The recent ADAM in the Taiwanese capital was thus something as a surprise as the acronym actually stands for, appropriately enough, “Asia Discovers Asia Meeting for Contemporary Performance”.

US based Indian dance artist Sujata Goel presented her work-in-progress “Self Love”.

Co-organised by the Taipei Performing Arts Centre (TPAC) and Taipei Culture Foundation, ADAM aims to be a network that supports “international collaboration between artists” and creates “a friendly interface between artists and institutions”. It’s also a network which “considers and works within the context of the Asia-Pacific today – artistically, culturally and socially”. ADAM focuses on partnership and “is open to connections with other arts networks and organisations” including those outside the region.

It’s worth noting here that while the completion date of the construction of the state-of-the-art and purpose-built TPAC is not yet certain, the preparatory team has been working on the software for a few years now. That’s very different from the situation in Thailand where we often have the hardware first and think of the software later.

At the core of ADAM is the Artist Lab, to which 10 Taiwanese artists and 10 artists from other Asia-Pacific countries from various fields of contemporary arts were invited. This was a 10-day residency during which they not only had time to become acquainted with one another but also to create small projects under the supervision of a group of international facilitators, namely Helly Minarti, Arco Renz, Leisa Shelton, Tang Fu-Kuen and Yao Lee-Chun.

Taiwanese dance artist Chen WuKang showed what he and Pichet Klunchun have been working on in “Body Tradition”.

Over the last four days of ADAM, international producers, presenters and programmers watched their presentations as well as other works-in-progress and finished works. Some also presented their organisations or festivals. There was also time for speed networking, in which they signed up to have a one-on-one meetings at a table for 10 minutes, in addition to four concurrent roundtable discussions on current issues in performing arts.

Henry Tan, co-founder of the Bangkok-based art initiative Tentacles, was the only Thai participant in the Lab, and he noted: “It’s a great opportunity for a young artist like myself: ADAM provided ample time, opportunity and financial support for us to experiment. Apart from getting to know and learning from fellow Lab artists, a few of whom I’m still in touch with, the last four days also allowed me to network with more people. A problem was that we had to create something for them [producers, programmers and presenters] to watch and I wish the focus could have been solely on the process of working together. Recently the organiser also asked if we wanted to propose any project but I’ve been so busy with other projects I haven’t had time to think about this yet.”

Berlin-based Singaporean multidisciplinary artist Choy KaFai, right, explained how his new “Dance Clinic Mobile” worked.

Tan sees the possibility of such a platform for interdisciplinary collaboration in Thailand if, “financial support is forthcoming and the facilitators stay open-minded and do not try to put any frames on the artists”.

Also at ADAM was Thong Lor Art Space’s managing director Chrisada Sambandaraksa who’s been to many networking platforms and arts markets in the region.

While appreciating ADAM’s different format, Chrisada admitted to not being quite sure whether ADAM is actually for artists or others [programmers, producers and presenters].

In addition to presenting Sodsai Pantoomkomol Centre for Dramatic Arts to ADAM participants, I listened to a 90-minute roundtable on “Bodies and Cultural Identity”.

Taiwanese queer theatre collective Miss Misery introduced its work to a familiar Thai colleague at “Speed Networking”.

Among the panellists was Indian dancer and choreographer Sujata Goel who now makes a living as a yoga teacher in the US. If this name sounds familiar, that’s because Bangkok audiences watched her solo “Dancing Girl” at “Our Roots Right Now” five years ago. She’s also conducting research on why people are coming to yoga classes – what they’re looking for in their mind, bodies and hearts. She refers to this as a “crisis of the self our modern society seems to be needing,” and has found herself in the market that’s selling selfhood and happiness, among others. Her solo “Self Love” [the work-in-progress of which was presented two days later] is “an investigation into the industry of the self in this major phenomenon of yoga”. As an Indian yoga teacher, she noted that it’s interesting to look at this culturally. She explained, “I have to learn how to perform this character. I’ve been trained in traditional yoga, a very stern kind, but my [American] students don’t want that.” As a result, she needs to appropriate and construct an identity for herself. She also noted that this is an old story, one dating back to the time of imperialism and colonisation.

Thai artist Henry Tan spoke at the artist roundtable “Cultivating Artists: What Do Artists Need Institutionally?”.

With the support from Ministry of Culture’s Southbound Policy, another panellist, Taiwanese dancer-choreographer Chen Wu-Kang, started collaborating with long-time friend Pichet Klunchun [the work-in-progress of their “Body Tradition” was also presented a day later], noting: “I thought his traditional [dance] background would probably answer some of my questions; but it didn’t. All the questions I had he’d come back with very Zen answers.” He then explained that this work asks how the traditional body should be –or whether there is actually one – and if there is such a thing as cultural identity.

The artist roundtable on “Bodies and Cultural Identity”

Chen added that, in terms of government support, his compatriots are in better condition than many other Asian colleagues, citing an example of another project on “Ramayana” on which he and Pichet are working. But he also noted: “They’re trying to get us out but not many people want to take us,” and that “if a festival in Europe wants to invite us, who would want to see an Asian group doing modern dance if you don’t do it with a cultural identity with which they’re familiar?”

Goel then commented that exchange is a game artists have to play, noting that “Most of the time, it’s [exchange] is performative” and that “I’m waiting for exchange in dance to go beyond identity politics.”

Good thoughts aside, here’s an example of how ADAM is working quite effectively as a network.

In early November before the start of Bangkok Theatre Festival (BTF) 2017, the curtain raiser of which, Oriza Hirata’s “Bangkok Notes” was at Sodsai Pantoomkomol Centre for Dramatic Arts, I received an email from a Taiwanese theatre director, a core member of Shakespeare’s Wild Sisters Group. He has frequently visited Bangkok– for pleasure, not business, like many other international artists.

My invitation to him to “Bangkok Notes” led to our first meeting and in late November we met again before I watched his company’s “Caged Time” in the National Theatre and Concert Hall’s (NTCH) parking basement.

This week, he’s in Bangkok to discuss a possible collaborative project for a comparative study on our Hanuman and their Sun Wu-Kong. Meanwhile, I’m looking forward to watching another work by his company at the Esplanade’s Huayi: Chinese Festival of Arts in Singapore next month and yet another work a month later at NTCH’s Taiwan International Festival of Arts (TIFA).

To keep updated with TPAC, visit http://www.TPAC-Taipei.org.

The writer’s trip to ADAM was fully supported by TPAC and Taipei Culture Foundation. Special thanks to Elaine Liu, Austin Wang and Tang Fu-Kuen.

Set in an iconic 1940’s New-York meatpacking style warehouse by the Chao Phraya, smack in the middle of the Creative District and right next to the new Thailand Creative and Design Centre (TCDC), P Tendercool will launch its latest bespoke hand-crafted sofa collection, made with reclaimed hardwood from Thai vintage houses, hand-welded extruded brass and 100- per-cent Thai latex.

The upholstery is made in collaboration with Jim Thompson. Also on show will be a selection of furniture created especially for Bangkok Design Week, showcasing P Tendercool’s unrelenting focus on cross-cultural creations through an intense collaboration between Belgian, Thai, French and Italian designers and craftsmen.

Tattoo artists Tantai, CZ and Luke Satoru will each show their work on custom-tattooed leather chairs.

Dutch photographer Hans Fonk will present the second series of his “China Rocks Collection: Painted Photographs”, the artist’s interpretation of the rapid change China has undergone in the last decades. Hans Fonk shows images of the Royal Palace juxtaposed on humble Hutongs, a series of photographs of Zen Rocks from Beijing’s Forbidden City and Palace Museum.  The artist prints his photos on canvas, a canvas he then finishes by combining Chinese watercolors and old Dutch oil paints.

P. Tendercool’s founders, Belgians Pieter Compernol and Stephanie Grusenmeyer, will then take visitors on a tour of their gallery, warehouse and PTlab. These are three distinctly different refurbished heritage spaces all within a five-minute walk from their gallery at Warehouse 30. PTlab is set in a 750-square metre warehouse next to a canal.

PTLab has not been shown to the public before and this tour will be a unique opportunity to really go behind the scenes and discover a refurbished warehouse and former rice storage building.

For details, call (02) 266 4344 or visit https://ptendercool.com

One of Indonesia’s leading contemporary artists, Wiharso has a multi-disciplinary practice and is known for his dramatic visual language and unique images of contemporary life.

He confronts the universal issues of power, loss and love through investigations of ideology, philosophy and identity. Particularly known for his large scale paintings, wall sculptures and installations, his work heightens our ability to perceive, feel and understand human problems like love, hate, fanaticism, religion, and ideology.

His work is layered with social, political and sexual critique, revealing a complex picture of the human condition by integrating narrative tools and placing unconventional materials together. Images from Javanese myth appear in his work in combination with contemporary elements to engage with ideas that continue to resonate and inform our daily life.

Wiharso studied painting, graduating from the Indonesian Institute of Arts in Yogyakarta. His work has been exhibited extensively in various contexts: gallery and museum shows, public and private collection displays as well as biennales and group shows in Indonesia and abroad. This is his first solo show in Thailand after other solo exhibits including “Promising Land”, Marc Straus(New York); “Never Say No”, Singapore Tyler Print Institute; and “Perfect Mirror”, Bernier/Eliades Gallery (Greece).

He is also represented in numerous notable collections, including the Guy and Myriam Ullens Foundation, Switzerland; the Olbricht Collection, Germany; the Indonesian Art Institute, Yogyakarta; the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia; the Rubell Family Collection, Miami, USA; and the Singapore Art Museum. Wiharos lives and works in Rhode Island, USA, and Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

On February 10, Sareena Sattapon will perform at the venue as a part of Galleries Night 2018.

Nakrob is best known for collage illustration, but in “Coronets”, he goes 3D with a study of the classical Siamese chada headdress.

He finds in the chada the embodiment of power and fantasy and explores its physical and abstract elements. These include its extensive height, elaborate gold decoration and sheer weight on the wearer’s head.

Nakrob invites viewers to interpret the chada as a highart head ornament frozen in time and as a contemporary art object on display, free from its context of royalty and dance. Once adorned with solid gold, the typical chada today is fashioned in papier-mache decorated with gold paint and mirrors. Its inherent value greatly reduced, the chada is now found in commercial performances, as a film prop, and in the Ram Kae Bon ceremonial dance.

A veteran maker of chadas was recruited to create the one featured in Nakrob’s installation, giving it intentional distortion. Likewise, the uba flower that traditionally decorates the wearer’s ear has been transformed into long lines of flowers, curled up on five spots on the exhibition floor, signifying the five spots where the body touches the floor when one performs a benjankrapraditha graab.

This is intended to provoke questions about how Thai culture systematically conditions people into submission. Will viewers, unaware that the exhibited chada has not been blessed by a dance master, be offended by it, perceiving it as blasphemous treatment of spiritual object? Or will it give them the chance to consider it from historical and contemporary angles?

Find out more at (085) 910 3680 or (086) 884 6254.