The first Art and Creative School Fair was held from 29th September - 7th October 2018 at the River City Complex. Taking part were a dozen schools, mainly of international school standing, and the youth art gathering was deemed a great success and a significant event for school art education.
 

Tentatively the BACC was to be the venue for the 2nd show soon after. Unfortunately, the Covid-19 pandemic put this plan on hold, until now.
 

International schools offer excellent academic standards and all-around education for students.
 

In retrospect, the exhibition at the River City showcased a general pattern that is often reflected in how art is taught in such schools, introducing students to a whole process of creative work skills which includes research, exploration, production, and artistic statement. Mastering such a process is useful to the youth and valuable later in life whether or not the student is pursuing a creative career. It is hoped that more people will realize this is what the art experience can do for the individual. It is one of the few school subjects which allows for expression other than the learning of facts.
 

Art education is the process of setting up questions, conducive to differentiation and appreciation of the world around us to take place; a dialogue with oneself and others, and honing one’s perceptive and expressive skills while engaging in it.
 

Recently there has been much public interest concerning 'soft power’. Needless to say, art and creativity are the upstream elements of ‘soft power’. And it starts young, at the school level.
 

The Thai public interest in art has been growing, for instance with visitors to the BACC increasing yearly and reaching 1.8 million in 2018, before the Covid-19 pandemic. These visitors are mostly in the age group of 15 to 25, and they are now returning in larger numbers than ever before.
 

This Fair is organized to create further interest and inspiration in the field of art education. For the BACC, having engaged in developing an art audience and various artistic endeavors during the last decade, it would like to see as its next step a policy to reach out further afield to schools and communities in the city.

For more information:
Kemapsorn Suwannarat 
Arts Network Officer (International Affairs)
Mobile : 02-214-6630 ext. 528
Email : [email protected]