THURSDAY, March 28, 2024
nationthailand

A partner to the arts

A partner to the arts

The Nation has recognised from day one the importance of culture in society

A partner to the arts Since arriving on newsstands in 1971, The Nation has documented countless art and culture stories both in Thailand and around the world. It has made readers witness to the rise and fall of cultural movements and analysed the changes they effect in society.
Early on it was mainly a matter of covering social and charitable gatherings among the Bangkok diplomatic corps and the expatriate community – in the popular “Society” column – and, in a separate “Women” column, giving space to what was then still disparagingly referred to as “the fairer sex”.
Amid harrowing political uncertainty, as in the bleak Octobers of 1973 and 1976 and the black Mays of 1992 and 2010, Nation reporters and cameramen were on the frontlines, but at the same time paid heed to the rumblings of art activism.
More recently the newspaper has devoted much room to artists and musicians who regard it as their duty to comment on ideological repression in the wake of the 2014 coup and the lingering taint of military control in politics. We hear and share their warnings, watchful for reactions from the generals and the social elite.

A partner to the arts
The Nation has also closely monitored the struggle to curb illegal trafficking in venerable Thai artefacts. It was an important day in November 1988 when we were able to report that the Art Institute of Chicago had agreed to return a looted temple structure known as the Narai stone lintel.
In 2014 the United States government returned more than 500 prehistoric relics from the Ban Chiang settlement in the Northeast after they were discovered at the Bowers Museum in California. Hundreds more priceless cultural items are likely to be returned from other US museums.

A partner to the arts
The Nation’s feature section – in successive order known as “Focus”, “Life”, “Sunday Leisure” and “XP Nation” – kept readers connected to influential world figures such as Vietnamese Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh. In these pages too was the Burmese democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, before she became Myanmar’s de facto (and to many, disappointing) leader.
The Nation’s reporting on cultural movements has always been a natural extension of its engagement with the arts scene. In the 1990s, then-editor Pana Janviroj arranged for the paper’s parent media company to co-organise a film festival, art and photo exhibitions and cultural seminars. 

A partner to the arts
In 1998 the newspaper teamed up with independent movie director Brian Bennett, a resident of Thailand, to launch the Bangkok Film Festival, soon renamed the Bangkok Inter-national Film Festival and ultimately the World Film Festival of Bangkok. 
In every incarnation it championed both independent titles and established box-office hits, both made in Thailand and from overseas.
Roman Polanski was among the winners of the festival’s lifetime achievement award, as were Thai movie legend Dokdin Kanyamarn and French grand dame Agnes Varda, both since deceased.
Over the course of a decade promoting the cinema industry, the newspaper assisted in salvaging historic Thai classics from the ravages of time and worked with foreign film institutes to finance emerging moviemakers.
As contemporary art evolved in Thailand in the late 1990s, the paper stayed abreast of developments. In October 1999 The Nation was involved with the world-touring art exhibition “Cities on the Move”, which examined the cultural impacts of East Asia’s rapid urban growth. 
The show actually made use of the newspaper as an experimental new means of reach a wider public. For the first time, The Nation became an art medium.
In July 2004 the paper joined with About Studio/About Cafe in helping conceptual artists create pieces for the exhibition “Here+Now”.
With China Daily, The Nation co-hosted “Thailand through the Dragon’s Brush”, an exhibition in Bangkok in 2015 in which Chinese painters led by Cai Zhixin created works inspired by Thai scenes they witnessed while touring cultural heritage sites and other landmarks.

A partner to the arts

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