With the administrative assistance of the Thinkers' Studio, the Dansai Expansion was directed by the SEA plateaus in partnership with the Loei Art Fes from Thailand. This project focuses on the arts and their relationship to adolescent development.
Three exchange events were held in November and December 2021. In order to have a healthy and sustainable collaboration among all involved participants, these events touched on a comprehensive range of subjects, including adolescent education, physical and mental health, community culture, and curatorial ideas in each region. Participants from Taiwan were the Easy Clubhouse, the Teenager Performing Arts League, and the mt.project, and they were joined by collaborators from Thailand, including the Dansai Art and Creative City Network, Mangkabia, Takhon Loves Earth, the Tiger Cave, the Dansai Crown Prince Hospital, and Jor Jarn Jai Dee. The main purpose of these events is to relate art practices to the society and also to prove that art can help the society to grow and develop.
After the Expansion was finished, the Forest School was established in January 2022, serving as a creative platform, in which Dansai residents direct themselves towards further understanding of values inherent in nature through arts. In this school, residents also learn how to preserve their cultural heritage and even give it a contemporary spin.
Formerly known as the Low Fat Art Fes but now rebranded as the Loei Art Fes, the festival moved from Bangkok to Loei in 2021, which coincides with its fourth anniversary. In order to distinguish Loei Art Fes from its earlier version in Bangkok, the organizer invited local residents in its new home to approach art from different angles while exploring how art can be used as an effective tool for social development. With the festival organizer’s ambition to increase the voluntary and proactive participation of local residents, artists and educators were encouraged to work with active citizens to start art groups and organizations. The festival organizer hopes that the Art Fes will be eventually planned and organized by residents in Loei independently on their own.
Established as an open network in Thailand in 2017, the Prayoon for Art received charitable status and became the Prayoon for Art Foundation in 2022. Despite the organizational change, the foundation continued promoting sustainable and viable movements in arts. With its aim to create a healthier cultural ecosystem that can accommodate both the society and art communities, it has been working hard to organize activities and events that respond to the needs of people and their communities.