As in most cities, Chiang Mai has art galleries, but some are a little more hidden away. Just south east of Chiang Mai’s Old Town Wall, you will find a place called the Dream Space Gallery. This place hosts a wealth of local art that is free for anyone to come and view.
Finding the Dream Space
To find the gallery you need to follow Ragang Road on the very south east of Old Town’s moat. Be careful not to go along the alleys with the same name, and stick to Ragang Road – don’t veer off to Ragang Road 2. If you follow the road right you will find a gate to the gallery on your right. If you reach the Hooman Boardgame House, you missed the gate, but turning right here will also get you into the gallery’s courtyard.
Before you go into the gallery proper you will find a few pieces of street art and sculptures scattered around the square. This will likely be the first place you will notice what could be the gallery’s motif as there are several of these around the galleries. It’s an anthropomorphic bird with a large round head. These pieces are by MUEBON, one of Asia’s most prolific street artists.
The entrance to the galleries itself can be hard to find – at least it took us a while to figure it out. There is a large warehouse with an unmarked entrance here that you need to go inside. You have to trust that you can walk through it, giving a real sense of urban exploration. Almost like you aren’t really meant to be here. Once inside there will be another door to the right, this one obscured by graffiti but it’s there.
The First Gallery
We were hesitant to enter at first. All we could see as we peeked through the doors was darkness. We slowly opened the doors, expecting an alarm to go off, or a guard to come running and tell us we weren’t supposed to be here. As we braved the first step into the warehouse, the lights flicked on, revealing a gallery of various pieces by local artists, ranging from paintings to interactive exhibits.
Photographic portraits depicting the lives of local minorities. Etchings of famous faces from around the world on boxes containing some of their most prominent quotes. Oil paintings of princesses and women from the northern tribes. Depictions of lonely monks going about their day-to-day. A set of boxes with the reclining Buddha, having achieved Nirvana painted over them – inside the box relating to your birth year a small fortune.
One corner was dedicated to art about refugees coming to Thailand. It was piled up with exhibits yet to be placed, a little messy. I thought of the refugees from Myanmar I met in Koh Phangan, and how refugees are often tucked into a corner and forgotten about. Thailand currently has over 90,000 refugees from the war, yet many people outside of the peninsula are unaware there is even a war here.
Another wall had paintings depicting the Covid-19 virus. We live in a post-Covid world now, but it still lingers over us like a collective PTSD. There are reminders everywhere: signs telling us to wear masks, maintain social distance, and paintings in galleries like this one.
Graffiti Galore
We took in as much as we could as we wandered through the exhibit, finding ourselves at an exit on the other side of the warehouse. Through this door we were able to ascend to the floor above, and found ourselves in a large, well-lit space.
Several large walls with graffiti by various artists were spread around the warehouse. Various styles were presented, from the chaotic, to the carefully painted, from characters to experiments with lettering, from quick tags to intricate designs.
There were more of MUEBON’s anthropomorphic birds. One large piece by Alex Face, a Thai-based graffiti artist, depicting his usual baby in a tiger suit. This one is split into dark and light panels, with the tiger suit changing colour in each panel, giving the impression of two images in one.
At the back we found a small workshop where the magic must begin. Various materials, palettes, and paints scattered around, as well as some works in progress. This place would be the perfect place for a lecture on the different styles of graffiti that exist across the city, and the world.
Returning to the World
When we were done we made our way back outside, to the nearby Hooman Boardgame House to take a coffee break before we walked back to town. The city’s embrace of art shines through in these freely accessible exhibits, where the goal is simply to share creativity. The Dream Space Gallery came out of the Art for Air project.
In its first exhibit that highlighted artists affected by air pollution. During Chiang Mai’s Burning Season farmers and others will burn their fields to get rid of biowaste and prepare for the coming year. During this time, air pollution in Chiang Mai is at an all-time high, so it is a major problem for people in the area.
After their first year, they expanded to other exhibits, curating art from all fields with no limit on the age, gender, nationality or genre. Now they run several exhibits in several galleries all over Thailand. On the website they say the goal isn’t to solve problems, but to make enough noise that they will be heard. Whether it’s covering the refugee crisis, teaching about indigenous cultures, or just drawing cool anthropomorphic birds, these galleries provide a space where artists can be seen and listened to.
This was certainly one of the highlights of Chiang Mai, and now I have something to look forward to when I return to Thailand. For these exhibits are not permanent, they are constantly moving and shifting in form. When we return there will be new exhibits, new art, and new artists.
If you go to Chiang Mai and you have even a passing interest in art, do not miss this place. And if you are in Thailand, try to find any nearby Art for Air galleries. They don’t cost you anything to visit.
They just want to be heard.
