Culture summit

Narawan Pathomvat believes libraries should be lively and interactive and serve as cultural platforms. That in mind, she returned home from the Pratt Institute in the US with a master’s in art and culture management and converted her family’s old shophouse in Bang Rak into the Reading Room.
Since relocating to Silom Soi 19, it’s become one of Bangkok’s most bustling culture venues, with a library of 1,000 books on contemporary art. There’s an archive on Thai art and reference books from around the world on different genres of art as well as history, theory, exhibition catalogues, magazines and electronic resources.
The bustling has more to do with the talks, screenings and workshops that the 32-year-old librarian regularly organises on art, literature, cinema and socio-political issues. Narawan oversees a non-profit organisation operating under the Foundation for the Promotion and Preservation of Thai Art.
This Friday is the “Creative Time Summit: Live Broadcast and Panel Discussion” in partnership with New York-based Creative Time. It brings together people involved with various aspects of culture to discuss how their work tackles pressing issues of the day.
Tomorrow night at 7, Thammasat University anthropology lecturer Yukti Mukdawijitra, political scientist Kengkij Kitirianglarp and artist Chitti Kasemkitvatana will share their views on current events in Thailand.
Then, from around 9 to midnight, participants will watch a live broadcast of the summit from New York. Slovenian philosopher and culture critic Slavoj Zizek and New York artist Martha Rosler will discuss “Confronting Inequity”, specifically how wealth imbalance erodes democracy.
On Saturday at 6pm, Zizek’s keynote speech will be broadcast, followed by a discussion in Bangkok about his philosophy led by Athip Jittarerk, an independent social-science researcher.
Attendees will then resume watching the broadcast until 11pm, and finally researchers Trin Aiyara, Wip Vinyaratn and Parut Penpayap will offer concluding remarks.
All broadcasts will be in English with Thai translation and the local discussions in Thai.
The library’s “Night School” series every Friday this week looks at “hate speech” and the global uproar over the film “Innocence of Muslims”.
Joining in the discussion will be Chanchai Chaisukosol, a lecturer at Mahidol University’s Research Centre for Peace-building, and Muslim rights activist Pratubjit Neelapaijit. She is the daughter of rights lawyer Somchai Neelapaijit, whose infamous disappearance in southern Thailand more than a decade ago has never been resolved.
They will examine the violence over the US-made film, which included the killing of the US ambassador to Libya. They will question whether “Innocence of Muslims” constitutes hate speech and as such needs to be censored.
Narawan and her team are also busy preparing a “Bangkok Book Map” of information on libraries and bookstores. It will be part of an exhibition at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre in November.
  LOTS TO DO
- See the full programme at CreativeTime.org.
- Recommend libraries and bookstores for the Bangkok Book Map at [email protected].
- Find out more at www.ReadingRoomBkk.org.