It’s just a few hours before the opening of the new Jim Thompson Art Center in downtown Bangkok, and Gridthiya Gaweewong, the artistic director, is busy measuring wall captions. She’s interrupted by a succession of assistants and contractors asking questions. She quickly finds solutions and moves on to meet and greet guests, whom she introduces to the artists displaying their artworks in the first exhibition, Future Tense, to be held at the new facility.

There’s a lot of excitement in the air, too. Tonight is Galleries’ Night, a four-night event created by the French embassy that links many of Bangkok’s galleries, under the slogan of ‘Art is the Solution’. Art lovers, starved of real-time exhibitions under pandemic lockdowns, are buzzing between galleries on free electric tuk-tuks.

• Tags: Gridthiya Gaweewong, Issue 26, John Clewley, Thailand