During June 24-28, the Chiang Mai Urban Flooding Field Lab held a collaborative arts workshop on the theme “Living with Water.” The workshop brought together twelve artists, designers, ethnographers, and scientists to work on arts projects that explore the many ways in which life in Chiang Mai is shaped by water. It was facilitated by Purin Phanichphant, UC Berkeley professor and Chiang Mai native. The workshop culminated in a group exhibit titled “Living with Water,” held at Weave Artisan Society with the opening on June 28th.

WHY INTERACTIVE ART?

“I think art can be part of the solution because art can inspire people to look at an issue they might otherwise ignore or reject. Art has the power to seduce, engage, and address our universal humanity in ways that create important conversations.”
— Shepard Fairey, artist and activist

As urban flooding rises to become a societal issue, challenging stakeholders in both private and public sectors, communicating scientific data, statistics, and facts is more critical than ever. Yet, scientists and researchers face unique challenges in connecting with the public, whose interests are often driven by personal gains rather than public good. How might we inspire public action for better urban planning and flood management

Through the years, humankind has turned to art to examine complex subjects through unexpected vantage points – “Water” is a topic that provides particularly rich material for an artistic analysis, as it is essential to human survival at physical, community, and societal levels. Specifically, interactive and participatory art, in the form of sculptures, context-specific installations, or immersive theater performances, can have a significant and long-lasting impact on audiences who get to experience the art pieces.

DESIGN THINKING AS A PROCESS
Having participants from various backgrounds and skill levels as artists, the workshop format took on the general framework of the design thinking as a unifying process: research, synthesis, ideation, prototyping and testing. On the first day, workshop participants gathered inspiration in the form of news articles and images about flooding, as well as examples of interactive art that inspire them. They then synthesized their research into a thesis/point-of-view in the form of “How Might We” questions. On the second day, participants learned about best practices for brainstorming, ideated together as a team, and then selected their ideas for rapid prototyping. The workshop then shifted into the prototyping-and-testing mode, with each round of prototype becoming increasingly higher in fidelity. The result of which culminated in their final installations on the fifth and last day.

Rather than religiously sticking to every step of the design thinking process like a prescription, participants were encouraged to employ the process like a toolkit and a mindset, from being mindful of “flaring” vs. “focusing” (divergent thinking vs. convergent thinking), to the notion of making-to-think and continuous iteration through “informed intuition.”

OUTCOME

Below are 11 art pieces that were exhibited. Some are in their prototype forms, due to the limited timeframe of the workshop. Nonetheless, the breadth and depth of the concepts provided audiences rich and nuanced understanding of the issue, way beyond what scientific data and statistics can describe.

What do you value the most? What are your priorities? By writing down the top three things to take on the boat, we share what we value in times of disaster and emergency.

In 2014, more than 300 passengers perished in the South Korean Sewol ferry disaster due to lack of disaster management on the crew, the business, and the Government levels. After witnessing this disaster, Sue questioned what we should prioritize in our lives as to not to lose our loved ones again. She borrowed the gesture of Loi Krathong to respect the water spirits that we could have saved, and to reflect back on the actions we’ve taken. She also used the color yellow in reference to the yellow ribbon that became a symbol of hope (to find the corpse) and as a remembrance to those that have lost their lives in the Sewol ferry disaster.

“The worst thing about the floods is the clean-up. It’s the mud.” Residents of Nong Hoi affected by the 2011 floods kept emphasizing this post-flood aspect. They live in a vulnerable area, trapped between the Ping River and an elevated highway. After the flood water receded, they toiled day after day to clean the mud from their furniture. Until today, 8 years after the flood, mud still stains their homes and community. This interactive art piece invites participants to clean the mud from the drawer, revealing the reflections of community members as the mud peels away.

On the Wall captures the flood memories and its ongoing consequences for Nong Hoi residents from the 2011 floods through photographs and poems. The photographs are composite images of two locals’ flood responses and the poems emerged from interviews with Nong Hoi locals, my interpolation, and Purin’s design thinking process.

Water is sacred. Water is a commodity.

Religious traditions have long utilized water in their rituals from the washing of oneself before daily prayers; pilgrimages to sacred rivers like the Indian Ganges; the baptism and admission of a soul into a religious sect. However, increased privatization has led to inequitable distribution of water and large dependence on plastic. The artist questions how easy it has become to quench our thirst by buying a plastic bottle of water. Is the water in the bottle still sacred?

What Comes After is a multi-sensory participatory performance that immerses the audience in the tumult of a flood. Blending elements of myth with recounted memories, What Comes After is an opportunity to consider the myriad ways a community might experience and understand a flood, as well as the possibilities for rebuilding.

Inspired by the 2018 events surrounding หมู่บ้านป่าแหว่ง, a controversy at the Doi Suthep foothill where city officials “legally” cut down the forest to make way for a housing project, Unnop took on the dichotomy between selfishness and selflessness in his interactive installation. How could one care for him/herself while caring for others, especially when it comes to water ownership and distribution? Each action has consequences, and one must deal with trade-offs between what they keep for themselves and what they give to others.

Inspired by the Augmented Reality Sandbox technique (developed by researchers at UC Davis), Giuseppe aims to let audiences play and experiment with the topographical boundaries between land and water. Using sand brought directly from Ping river, with its unique grain size, color, and texture, combined with the Microsoft Kinect sensor and software, the visual and tactile qualities of the piece lends itself to giving the audience the sense of empowerment, and to take part in reshaping the future of river ways such as Mae Ping. As he keeps pushing the idea further, Giuseppe aims to experiment with scale, additional sensors, and other user interactions.

“When I am silent, I fall into the place where everything is melody” 
– Rumi

During his short experience in Chiang Mai, Rahul notices how the docents struggle to keep balance in their lives. Too much emphasis has been put on attaining more, resembling the Western ideal of success and excess. Similarly, flooding is the condition where the excess of water negatively impacts the society.

What if instead, the focus is on harmony? What would life look like when balance is kept well in place just like lotus flower on a still pond? It may be difficult to put words to describe the condition, but perhaps one can feel it from the installation.

On a functional level, Ben and Yi-liang recognize the urgent need to respond to flash floods in urban communities by slowing down water run-offs. As rainfall can be unpredictable, one thing that communities and cities are empowered to do is to come up with creative ways to increase resistance in water flow.

On a visceral level, the two artists recognize that urban life is fast-paced, and that there is also a need for us city dwellers to slow down our lives. How might existing techniques of slowing down water run-offs inspire us to change the way we live? And how might we take inspiration from those who live balanced and well-paced lives in coming up with new ways to slow down the water flow?

Anurak is an artist who is inspired by folklore and myths, as well as the connection between man and nature. In this participatory piece, titled The Local Ghost (เจ้าที่ in Thai), Anurak recorded the underwater sounds from Mae Ping, the main river that flows through Chiang Mai. With minor edits, he replays the sound to the audience and invites them to visualize what these “Local Ghosts” may look like, using mud and water from the river itself. Part playful and part horrific, these mysterious beings capture the spirit of what it’s like to live with water in Thailand, where animism and daily lifestyles intertwine.

Growing up in Thailand and learning English as a second language, Purin has always been fascinated by sentence structures of and cross-translations between both Thai and English. On a personal level, water is vital to survival and physical growth, while language is central to mental and psychological development. On a societal level, water is key to the development of communities and cities, while language defines cultures and nuances within them. ⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

It may not be obvious, but water (substance) and the word “water” in Thai are so intertwined that it is unimaginable to separate the two. Specifically, “water” is used as prefix and suffix to both obvious liquid-like things like river, vapor, honey, and to abstract concepts like kindness, weight, and voice. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

All participants are encouraged to play and discover the various uses of the word “water” in Thai. However, the experience of someone who knows Thai will be different from someone who doesn’t.