Photo Diary: Reflections on the Lab X Residency in Bangkok by James Gallego Olivo

This is the first picture I took in Bangkok where I captured some of the friends I made. We were outside a studio where we had a dance jam session together.

From left to right: Abigail, Saruda, Knot, and I didn’t get to talk to the other two. It was also raining while we were under shelter.

This photo is on the roof of Bangkok Kunsthalle. Fairly cloudy, but intensely humid. We were taken on a tour of the building. From the left to right: Ying from Bangkok 1899 / Creative Migration, Stefano from Kunsthalle, Nene from Artsadmin, and Susannah from Bangkok 1899 / Creative Migration.

This is on the ground floor at Bangkok Kunsthalle, where I performed my solo work to a live audience. This was the perfect space to perform in, I love the abandoned, wilting, eerie, and lonely feel of the space. The texture of the smooth floor tiles, the blurred graffitied windows, the towering columns in the middle of the space, the chairs and tables void of human life. Perhaps echoes of what used to exist of people, memories.

A busy main road in China town, large advertisement signs on the sides of buildings, street food vendors along the pavements, tourists and locals mixing, roads always rumbling, tuk tuks, trucks, buses, rustle and bustle.

Photo on the left: A few steps away from Bangkok 1899. A quiet pavement under shelter and trees, almost always calm from busy crowds, a hairdresser, a bookshop, housing for a few families.

Photo on the right: Opposite a busy mall, gazing at a busy main road, endless cars with all the spaces between filled with motorcycles, all working in harmony, like cogs in a watch. Passengers relaxing on the back of motorcycles, used to the motions, weaving through traffic.

Photo on the left: Walking through a huge park I found in the centre, I stumbled upon this cat. There were many stray cats in the park, climbing trees, wandering around. Many things were happening; a large group of people doing a Zumba-like class, another group doing calisthenics. I actually got bit by a sizeable ant… think it had wings too, it came out the broken wood of a bench where I sat.

Photo on the Right: this is outside the entrance to Bangkok Kunsthalle, there was an older man selling dried fish. He would flatten the fish between two rollers before serving them to you. Nene tried them, and thought it was really good. Very humble work to bring this cart around in the sweltering heat.

Lab X is a pilot artistic residency and cultural exchange between Thailand and the UK, supported by the British Council’s Connections Through Culture programme. It sits within Artsadmin’s artist support programme Lab, a micro residency designed to provide artists with time, space, and money to develop their practice, without expectation of delivery.

Artsadmin and Creative Migration, an international arts organisation based in Los Angeles and Bangkok, have co-designed this nine-month artist development programme, to confront the profound challenges faced by artists and producers working internationally. Click here to find out more.