Ceramicist Frances Priest, currently working as artist in residence in a school in Thailand, shares her experiences and adventures.

October 2005

Regents School is located on the outskirts of Pattaya in central Thailand.  It is a fee paying international school teaching primary through to 6th form children studying GCSE and Baccalaureate qualifications.  There are boarding and day students and though many nationalities are represented a large percentage of the children are Thai or half Thai.  I have been invited to work as the schools artist in residence for the academic year 05/06.  This is my first residency and my first opportunity to live and work outside of the United Kingdom.

Upon arrival at the school I was immediately struck by its location, set in manicured grounds off a busy highway, fenced off from the wider community.  The fabric and architecture of the place is based on the ideal of an English public school and all lessons are taught with a western bias.  English is the language of communication and children are encouraged to use it at all times through a reward system set in place by the English Department.  English as a Second Language ‘ESL’ is one of the biggest departments in the school. 

As part of these departments’ endeavours to equip all students with a fluent understanding of the English language “English Week” features highly in the school calendar with a week of competitions, debates, impromptu poetry recitals and drama performances, and all ‘House Teams’ Red, Blue, Yellow and Green competing for coveted points toward their final total and ultimate glory.  In discussion with Corrin James the head of English I decided to use this event as a focus for my first project in the school.

The need for a common language of communications is paramount within an institution of this type, but I felt that during English week it would also be useful to recognise the value and importance of the cultural diversity of the school. I chose to invite all members of the school community to submit their favourite word from any language along with its English translation (a Scottish teacher submitted ‘Shoogly’ which was a particular favourite of mine!). The response was fantastic and opened up a doorway of communication between myself and the students and staff, instigating many interesting discussions about words, their origins and meanings.   Language barriers were a problem with some Thai staff despite the help of a translator, but I did manage to get some suggestions from the school chefs, security guards, and administrative staff. 

Using these suggestions I began to play with constructing areas of pattern that looked purely at the visual qualities of the alphabets and scripts the words were submitted in - Thai, Korean, Japanese, Taiwanese, French, Estonian, German, Russian, English, Dutch and Spanish.  As English Week loomed ever closer these ideas needed to consolidate quickly into some final presentations around the school grounds. 

The canteen seemed an obvious point of focus as all members of the school community would visit the space at some point in the day.  I produced a set of simple box structures that sat on every dining room table and acted as objects for discussion.  The production of a book proved a very popular and effective way of documenting and presenting all the contributions.  One very striking and unexpected conclusion I drew from the student’s contributions was that I had discovered a school full of romantics!  The word Love was the most common contribution from pupils and other suitably sweet suggestions included Adorable, Lovely, Bear-hug, I love You (in Arabic), Cute and Sweetheart. The opportunity was too much to resist and the final installation formed two rainbow archways made up of all the romantically inclined suggestions.

For the second half of this term I am focusing on research into Thai textiles and trying to discover more about contemporary Thai art which so far has proved quite elusive.  I am also initiating a project with a local charity called ‘The Fountain of Life’ which provides day-care, health and education facilities for poverty stricken children.

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