INTRODUCTION

This study is the result of a survey initiative launched in April of 2020 by three representatives of Thailand’s Art Ecosystem, namely Atinuj Tantivit, Praneenut Niyomsin, and Shane Suvikapakornkul who created the Facebook group entitled “Thailand’s Art Ecosystem” following the outbreak of COVID-19 in Thailand the same month. When the survey closed in June 2020, there were 406 respondents. Respondents were sourced from personal and professional networks of the organizers of the survey as well as the membership of the Facebook group which had grown to over two thousand members by the writing of this report. The data tabulation, analysis, and reporting were done in collaboration with Teak Research, Co., Ltd, a market research agency based in Bangkok.

The purpose of undertaking this study was to gain a shared understanding of Thailand’s Art Ecosystem including all relevant stakeholders in order to inform the art public about the current state of the art industry and ecosystem in Thailand.

Teak Research was consulted by the three representatives in order to ensure credible reporting of survey responses. Survey questions and responses were scrutinized by the research team to eliminate incomplete responses from data tabulation. Inductive analysis was used to triangulate responses to open-ended questions in conjunction with text analysis to identify similar patterns in responses and quantify them. Coding was done with closed responses such as demographic data. However, due to the time constraints and incongruous responses, the research team decided to code the data which was most complete and consistently reported.

In response to a question in the survey about overall opinions of the art industry in Thailand, out of all 284 valid responses, 59 (20.8%) expressed a positive sentiment toward the industry, 44 (15.5%) expressed a neutral sentiment, 181 (63.7%) expressed a negative sentiment.

Some examples of the topics with a negative or neutral sentiment were slow the growth of the art industry, lack of resources and support, inadequate demand from buyers, nicheness, lack of inclusivity, lack of diversity, lack of opportunity, and lack of platforms for emerging artists. Examples of topics raised which had a positive sentiment were the rising number of younger generations in the art industry, the expanding role of online social media platforms, and gradual growth in opportunities for the art industry. The remaining respondents gave no responses or gave invalid responses to this question.

Due to the open-ended nature of the questions and the vastly different, and in some instances, contradicting responses, no conclusion could be drawn about any one particular topic raised by respondents in regard to the opinion of the industry as a whole. Further research would be necessary to generalize the issues raised by respondents.