In-Depth Overview

Theatre and Cultural Collaborations

Over the past five years, Makhampom Art Space has expanded its role beyond being a creative production house emerging as a powerful hub of community-based art, intercultural collaboration, and decolonial learning. Its partnerships span across local, regional, and global networks, involving a range of co-productions, artistic residencies, youth empowerment programs, and grassroots development work. These collaborations fall into several categories:

Co-productions (Artistic collaboration)

  • Co-design & Co-curation (Shared process facilitation)
  • Residency & Exchange (Artist/youth/volunteer mobility)
  • Long-term Partnerships (Education & community systems)

1. Artistic Co-Productions

The Overlapping (2024)

  • Type: Dance & Video Arts Co-Production
  • Collaborators: Queer performers, ethnic youth, AI researcher, community members
  • Theme: Intersectionality across identity, gender, generation, labor and technology
  • Highlight: Deep co-creation with marginalized voices from Chiang Dao

Dream Home (2025)

  • Type: Thai–Japanese Collaborative Art Project
  • Supported by: Japan Foundation
  • Theme: Redefining “home” through performance, spoken word, and collaborative paper-based visuals
  • Format: Youth-to-youth creative exchange, both online and on-site

Watch Me Breathe (2022)

  • Type: Testimonial Theatre
  • Collaborators: Rohingya refugees, ethnic communities from Myanmar
  • Theme: Displacement, trauma, and silence under military regimes
  • Approach: Performed through breath, gaze, and silence where voice was once denied

2. International Residencies & Exchanges

Toy Factory- Plot SEA Project (2024-2025)

  • Partners: Singaporean and SEA performance artists + Chiang Dao local artists
  • Format: 15-day co-residency
  • Focus: Identity, co-existence, and Southeast Asian futures
  • Method: Co-facilitated process-based performance within community settings

Tracing Roots (2023–2026)

  • Type: Humanitarian volunteer program with creative arts
  • Partners: European Solidarity Corps (ESC), local communities
  • Focus: Youth empowerment, statelessness, and community-led resilience
  • Outputs: Indigenous learning centers, gardens, participatory rituals

International Conference of Insecurity (Bern, Switzerland, 2021-2022)

  • Partners: Artists from 7 countries
  • Theme: Precarity across digital, social, and national structures
  • Format: Multi-vocal performance and conceptual exploration

3. Collaborations with Arts and Cultural Institutions

BIPAM (2022)

  • Event: Bangkok International Performing Arts Meeting
  • Role: Production manager for “Ownership”
  • Focus: Stateless artists from Chiang Dao reclaiming identity and space through performance

Japan Foundation

  • Support Role: Funded and coordinated Dream Home project
  • Contribution: Facilitated youth-led intercultural creation and touring

Goethe-Institut (Thailand & Southeast Asia)

  • Emphasis: Artistic research, digital exchange, and intercultural storytelling

4. Local Collaborations: Schools & Communities in Chiang Dao

Learning Stations: Chiang Dao Learning City

  • Partners: 8 local schools, hill tribe communities, local education offices
  • Initiative: Developed “learning stations” based on local wisdom
  • Examples: Organic farming gardens, Natural dyeing workshops, Ceramics for healing and Shamanic storytelling labs.
  • Approach: Integrated SDGs, IB curriculum, and hands-on community-based education

Youth Theatre for Transformation

  • Partners: Terre des Hommes, Thai civil society networks
  • Focus: Empowerment of marginalized youth (stateless, LGBTQ+, ethnic) through theatre camps and dialogue forums

5. Art as Public Protest & Civic Expression

Ra-Ta-Pla-Phao: The Tragedy (2020–2021)

  • Format: Protest performance in public spaces
  • Collaborators: Chiang Mai art activists
  • Theme: Political violence, collective grief, and reclaiming public narrative

Act Up Chiang Mai (Ongoing since 2019)

  • Format: Transformative theatre festival
  • Theme: Art Acts Listen – centering marginalized voices in civic discourse
  • Audience: Artists, activists, youth leaders, and ordinary citizens

Strategic Insights

  • Makhampom serves as a cultural bridge connecting local wisdom with global dialogues.
  • Their collaborations emphasize horizontal partnerships; everyone involved is a co-creator, not a recipient.
  • Their strength lies in localizing global tools to amplify community voice and ownership.
  • Their impact goes beyond art; it reshapes structures of learning, power, and solidarity.