Art Exhibition from : February 15th – 28th 2010
Venue : Pridi Bhanomyong Institute, Sukhumwit Soi 55 (BTS Thonglor), Bangkok, Thailand
The Illegal, Temporary and Precarious States of Being – Migration Seminar and Art Exhibition explores the impacts of the current global responses to migration. While the governments of the world find more and more ways to enforce temporary status on the very migrants who are sustaining their economies and life-styles, space must be given to highlight the contradictions and to allow new ideas and approaches to emerge. This Seminar and Art Exhibition hopes to be one such space.
In Thailand, migrants from Burma, Cambodia and Lao PDR who enter the country without documents are subject to policies which keep them temporary and unstable. From January 2009 until January 2010, 1.3 million migrants who had registered for temporary work permits in Thailand lived under the threat of mass expulsion on February 28th 2010. Just five weeks before this date, on January 19th 2010, the Cabinet passed a resolution postponing the mass expulsion by two years. Similar stories are occurring all over the world. Today’s global responses to labour migration renders people disposable commodities depriving them of human dignity. Policies aim to make migrants temporary, forced to return after short periods of work or at the whim of the countries of origin or destination. Migrant women, men, youth and children struggle to survive endless rounds of temporary policies, unable to legally stay or realistically return. Nevertheless, all over the world migrants of different genders, nationalities and religions are resisting these policies of temporariness, precariousness and illegality. They are staying and returning, they are working and surviving.
MAP Foundation (Thailand), Studio Xang (Thailand), The Asian Institute of Technology (Thailand) and the University of Leeds (UK) organized this seminar and art exhibition as a follow up activity to the “International Workshop on Gender, Migrant Workers and Citizenship in the Greater Mekong Sub-region: Economic and Political Perspectives for a World in Crisis” which was held on 1 -3 rd June 2009.
The art exhibition brought together eight innovative artists with multiple and varied experiences of migration to expose the world of migration and its precarious nature. Through photographs, installations, videos, and performance the artists, Estelle Cohenny, Maryanne Coutts, Nic Dunlop, Liz Hilton, John Hulme, Padungsak Kochasamrong, Lui Lifen and Somchai Pinitsap explore a world the general public rarely sees and which policy makers prefer to forget.
The seminar provided an opportunity for different stakeholders to discuss different approaches to migration and how it affects cross border migrants, local communities in the home and host country and how these approaches impact on the economy, development and workers rights. The limitations of the temporary and short term responses to migration were further explored.
Schedule on February 15th 2010
9.00 Art performance Mr. Padungsak Kochsamrong
Welcome remarks
- Prof. Worsak Kanok-Nukulchai, Vice President for Resource Development, Asian Institute of Technology
- Ms. Navsharan Singh, IDRC Canada
- Mr. Katsumi Kakazu, Director General,Japan Foundation
9:45 Key note speech: “Illegal, temporary and precarious states of being: Migrant workers in Thailand” by Dr. Lae Dilokvidhyarat Associate Professor, Faculty of Economics, Chulalongkorn University
10:15 Break and viewing of exhibition
10:30 Panel discussion: Illegal, Temporary, and Precarious States of Being
- “Marginalized people in Thailand: Temporary status/ universal rights?” by Mr. Ekachai Pinkaew, National Human Rights Commission
- “Cross border migrants in Thailand: Temporary status / permanent labor?” Ms. Ruedeerat Detprayoon, Senior Labor Officer, Ministry of Labour
- “Workers in Thailand: Temporary and precarious” Ms. Wilaiwan Saetia, Thai Labour Solidarity Committee
- Migrant worker representative
- Policy brief Presentation AIT representative
11:30 Discussion
There will be an opening event of the art exhibition at 6:30 p.m. at the same venue.
All are welcome to join.
The event is organized by MAP Foundation, Asian Institute of Technology, Studio Xang and the University of Leeds; while it is supported by IDRC Canada, and The Japan Foundation, Bangkok
This seminar/ art exhibition is a part of an IDRC supported project “Gender, Cross-border Migrant Workers and Citizenship: A case study of the Burmese-Thai border”.
