“Why is the River Laughing?” is a dive into urban histories, communities, and ecologies, to explore the importance of local waterways in the Bangkok old town area. The project has Exhibition, Workshop, and Performance programs, with local and international artists, researchers, students, community members, and public participants. The project is based at the historic So Heng Tai Mansion, a 240-year-old Chinese Mansion in the heart of Talat Noi. The mansion becomes a strange klong (canal), with its swimming pool in the center courtyard, an old wooden boat for cooking noodle soup, performers with mobile sculpture, sound and video art, workshops, and participatory street actions in the surrounding neighborhood. Envisioned as a research residency or creative development lab, the artists and researchers from Lost Klong Collective develop a live studio environment that changes and evolves over BKKDW. PERFORMANCE – The Performance program unfolds over 2 weekends of experimentation – 4 nights, 4 hours each night, 7+ artists. The performance is ‘durational’ – open for the audience to visit at any point in the evening (6pm-10pm), stay for a while, and return another time to see how it evolves over a longer period. Long performance actions are collective, site=specific, and participatory – feeling the passage of time like a slow river with different streams – feeling how the house expresses itself, from the pool to the continuous balcony above and a ruin out the back. Admission: 50 THB entry [See Exhibition and Workshop programs for separate pricing] * Café/bar open for refreshments, and noodle soup from the boat Kindly supported by The Center for Philosophical Technologies at Arizona State University, University of New South Wales, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, the School of Global Studies, and the Faculty of Fine & Applied Arts at Thammasat University. Thanks also to Bangkok International Performing Arts Meeting, So Heng Tai, and community collaborators in Talat Noi and Nang Loeng.