Bangkok Art Biennale: Nurture Gaia
By Leonor Veiga

Installation view of BOUNPAUL PHOTHYZAN’s Story from Plateau, 2019- , bomb casings, 200 × 40 × 40 cm each, at the Bangkok Art Biennale, 2024. Photo by Arina Matvee. Courtesy the Bangkok Art Biennale Foundation.
Across epochs and cultures, the concept of Gaia—the divine personification of planet Earth—has held significance in mythology, religion, philosophy, art, and science. Recently, under the title “Nurture Gaia,” it served as the theme of the fourth Bangkok Art Biennale (BAB), which meditated on poignant matters of environmental degradation and preservation. Engaging our collective moment, 76 artists from Thailand and across the globe presented nuanced reflections on how to move forward in an ecologically fragile era. In the show’s 11 venues—including the National Museum, the National Gallery, and four Buddhist temples along the banks of Chao Phraya River—contemporary works were often placed alongside religious artifacts in a dialogue between past and present, emphasizing how life and creativity are continuous, circular, and interconnected.