Technique & medium: Site-specific sculpture installation, wood and taffeta.

What’s the background to this piece?
This exhibition showcases artworks by the Thai artists who have or are still studying or working in Germany. I did my bachelor and master degrees in Germany, and I am currently living there so I was invited to participate in this exhibition. Since I work a lot with site-specific installation, Second Class is based on the venue itself, which is the exit of the BACC’s ninth floor.

What was your inspiration?
The piece is inspired by professor Chatree Prakitnantakarn’s book Art and Architecture of the People’s Party. The architecture during that period was clearly minimalistic and supported the notion of “form follows function.” I love looking at the structure of buildings and how different elements come together to form architecture. It’s intriguing how architecture can reflect many things about our society such as the economy, social issues and civilization.

You piece consists of two major components, what are they and how does their relationship help you achieve your concept?
The first part you see at the exit/entrance makes use of real material like unpolished and unpainted pieces of wood. I want them to vaguely reflect the ramshackle wooden houses you typically found along a canal. The other component is designed to give a stark contrast with its imposing, abstract symmetry. The yellow taffeta symbolizes the many aspects of the Orient like religion and monarchy. Together they should provide a conflicting experience for the viewers, walking through a somberly-lit wooden canopy to reach an unidentifiable, bright yellow object.

What will the viewers get out of this piece?
One good thing about a site-specific installation is that it’s open to interpretation. People react to materials differently depending on their individual experience. The only clue I’m giving away is the title of this piece, then it’s up to them to analyze and come up with their own interpretation.

Return Ticket: Thailand-Germany exhibition with Preechaya Siripanich

Why did you choose to play piano?
I didn’t really choose it but, like my two older brothers, I was forced by my parents to practice at least 30 minutes per day when I was growing up. It wasn’t until much later that I actually started to like it.

Who’s your musical idol and why?
Oscar Peterson. He has a superb timing and he fills his bebop lines with a lot of blues. I like blues and it is essential for a good jazz musician.

What are you bringing to the Jazz Up Festival?
Expect to hear some pieces written by my idol Oscar Peterson, and also some Chopin arrangements.

Talking about Chopin, we heard that you’re putting a jazzy twist on his works?
It’s a surprise. You can find out more about that in my new CD or come to see the performance.

What’s next for you?
I’ll still be travelling a lot during the new few months. I’ll play in Japan, South America, New York, Poland and Siberia. Next year, however, I’ll probably perform the Chopin program in the theaters back in my home country the Netherlands.

Catch Peter Beets at Jazz Up Bangkok Festival

I was a normal kid trying to live up to high expectations because my parents (Sakesan Prasertkul and Jeeranan Pitpreecha) had this iconic status. Everyone admired them.

I tried to prove myself by being a rogue in junior high school, by smoking and playing hooky.

Things changed when I went to the US as an exchange student. I was transformed from being popular to being bullied. I learnt that if you change places, your identity is changed as well.

I stopped running away from my parents’ shadow. I started being a writer and started to comment on how our society could be better.

I was too rebellious to follow my father’s footsteps. So I chose to study economics instead of political science.

Economics sees the world as a system, without any bias. But too much faith in economics will make you heartless. Political science and economics should be combined to make this world better.

There are so many arguments about what’s good or bad about government. But the fact is, there is no way that any administration or politician could satisfy everyone’s needs.

Reducing the government’s role is something that everyone is currently talking about— shifting the influence and responsibility to the private sector and to the people.

Working for society doesn’t need to be a sacrifice. People can also earn a living and support themselves doing it.

I was nervous when I had a chance to interview Prime Minister Abhisit on television. I knew many people were waiting to see what he had to say. But I couldn’t get the answers I wanted, as he eluded my questions.

I don’t try to foresee Thailand’s future. What I think today might never come true, so I try to focus on things that can actually be achieved.

Do something instead of thinking and doing nothing. We don’t have to wait for politicians to change. Many countries succeed in making their society better through an active people and private sector.

My generation is staying away from politics. We are starting to do something for society on our own.

My goal is to create social-investment in Thailand—make people know what it is. But the problem is there are too few people in this circle. We are working too hard to look back and say, “Is it good enough?”

We can’t expect society to be as it used to be. Reducing the role of government by creating a self-sufficient culture will get people to stop having unreasonable expectations.

I went to the Red Shirt protest site because I wanted to know if it was true that they were all Thaksin’s people. Most of the people there were just rural folk. They all believed they were doing the right thing.

They made me realize how lucky I am. The middle class doesn’t have to struggle like them.

I stopped criticizing others when I realized I didn’t know enough. It’s better to listen to them, to try to solve their problems than to judge whether they’re right or wrong.

Uncertain things are certain. I thought I wouldn’t be changed but I was changed. I used to have a big ego and hate the world. But after seeing a lot of brilliant things and people, I realized I am no better than anyone else. Though, I still have standards to judge myself, I don’t judge others.

Giving myself a chance to learn about movies is the reason I decided to play Pol. Lt.Chart Wutthigrai in the Inseedang movie. I’ve tried a lot of things like being a TV anchor, a writer and playing in a band (Rashomon). People keep asking me to star in movies, so I thought why not give it a try.

I love to play music most. I love the way my band and I write lyrics, play, live together.

Not going to temples made me think I wasn’t religious. But the way to heal suffering as the Buddha taught. Dharma is nature.

The Pali and Sanskrit languages are the greatest wall isolating people from religion. They don’t understand why they’re praying, so more and more people see the rituals as pointless.

Understanding society is the hardest thing. I’m still at it—it’ll probably take my whole life.

Stop criticizing others, just make things real.

Chirayu Na Ranong

Boran (2/F, Exchange Tower. 388 Sukhumvit Rd., 088-022-4022. BTS Asok)
Previous life: Travel writer for the Bangkok Post, food writer for a few magazines. Before that I studied cinema. Maybe I’ll be an astronaut next year?
Concept: Old Thai market, hence the name Boran. Classic, everyday dishes like boat noodles from the Rangsit Market and dim sum from Chinatown.
Preparation: Being a food writer, I’ve seen a lot of what works and what doesn’t. But this is a million times harder than it looks. A humbling experience.
Worst Fear: Money and having too few customers
Kitchen Nightmare: Finding a sink in our kitchen smaller than the one at  my home—not exactly suitable for a 40-seater restaurant.

Varatt Vichit-Vadhakan

Ohana Café (50/4 Sukhumvit Soi 24, 02-661-1930)
Previous life: I was working in the marketing communication industry for various clients. I actually studied Economics in college.
Concept: I wanted to serve Western style comfort food that I wanted to eat but couldn’t find after I came back to Thailand. I searched everywhere for a good cup of coffee.
Preparation: I read a lot of cookbooks, stories of successful restaurateurs, books about restaurant operations. I bothered too many business owners for knowledge. And I was prepared to fail.
Worst Fear: Dealing with ingredient purchases, dealing with safety issues, dealing with customers and, worst of all, my own staff.
Kitchen Nightmare: Construction workers who miss deadlines and the hidden startup costs that you didn’t plan for.

Jarrett Wrisley

Soul Food Mahanakorn (56/10 Soi Thong Lor, 085-904-2691)
Previous life: Studied literature and Mandarin. Went to China to work. Settled in Shanghai, wrote about restaurants. Then moved to Bangkok with my wife. 
Concept: I wanted to do a Thai restaurant, but in a different format. It doesn’t have to be street food or a shop house. There’s room to explore, even in Bangkok.
Preparation: Traveled in Thailand for two years, worked in a restaurant kitchen in the South, learned to make sausages in Isaan, cooked with old ladies, wandered through markets. Read as many cookbooks as I could get.
Worst Fear: If you’re not worrying about money, quality, consistency, margins, covers, return customers, cleanliness, spoilage and a million other things in this business you shouldn’t be in it. Fear is a great motivator.
Kitchen Nightmare: Making an old shop house new again is a pretty exhausting process.

Ayusakorn Arayankoon

4 Garcons (113 Thong Lor Soi 13, 02-662-713-9547)
Previous life: Chemist at a pharmaceutical company, then logistics guy at a large warehouse.
Concept: We [the four “garcons”] can cook Chinese, Italian, Japanese and fusion, but if we went Italian, we’d just be another Italian in town. A brasserie was missing here, a place you can eat every day, not just on special occasions.
Preparation: I’ve cooked my whole life, but for this, I took a pastry class at the Cordon Bleu every Saturday for six months while still working. We also took trips to Paris and Lyon. To me, Lyon is the center of food in France.
Worst Fear: We had plans A, B, D and E! We prepared our finances so we’d be ok for quiet nights for a few months.
Kitchen Nightmare: We were two weeks behind schedule. We wanted people to come in and do food tastings, but the restaurant wasn’t ready. We borrowed the Oakwood lobby for tastings and service rehearsals.

Poramate Minsiri

Founder of Kapook.com and Ignite Thailand
What makes Ignite a good event?
Ignite encourages people to be creative. At the last Ignite in Chiang Mai, we saw people present projects and ideas that were related to local knowledge and traditional cultures. I had been worried whether this kind of event would work outside Bangkok but it turned out to work very well. With Ignite, local ideas can be a good inspiration for others. So a different location, and topic, will generate different ideas and inspirations.
What do you get from organizing Ignite?
I have a passion for doing this, so I don’t expect to get anything in return. I even dedicate my own resources to promote the event too.
How do you see the knowledge sharing trend developing?
There are several technological innovations in how we present and pass along our knowledge that I think are a result of changing social dynamics. I also think that we are developing new social values in relation to an increased desire to share that knowledge. I think this trend is growing bigger and is now affecting more people.

Santi Lawrachawee

Vice President of the Thai Graphic Designer Association and I am a Thai Graphic Designer (IMATD) forum that is currently Thailand’s largest graphic design event. Visit www.imtgd.org for upcoming events.
Why do we need the IMATD forum?
There are numerous graphic design contests every year, but the skills and styles of our students or graphic designers are not really developing. If we don’t organize this knowledge-sharing event then I’m afraid that Thai graphic designers will not have a main Thai identity to link everyone together.
The first forum, Somewhere Thai, is about finding real Thai identity. Why?
The most asked question I, and most designers, get is: “What’s the identity of Thai design works?” Like we see from Chinese and Japanese works. But it’s not necessarily a quest to find the answer, but more like a big brainstorming session to find out what others think.

Pichit Sriyanonda

Account Supervisor at Synergy and attendee at every Web Wednesday
Why are you attending Web Wednesday?
Networking, that’s all. And it’s an event organized by people in the online industry. So I need to show my support, too.
Why do you think others come to the event? What do they hope to get out of it?
People like me who work in the online industry mostly come to give support and network with like-minded individuals. People in the web media, online advertising agencies and social media addicts might just come to listen to the speaker.
Do you see this as a form of communication for your organization or a way of putting yourself out there?
I go to these events as myself, not as a representative of the company. I just look at it as a way of getting to know more people and find out what they’re doing. Half of people I meet during the event are people I didn’t know before.
Do people approach you after your talk? What do they ask or offer?
I once got a job offer a day after the event but I wasn’t not looking for a new job. I think these events pay off; you only need to be pretty friendly.

How did you become a Chippendale?
All the guys have different stories on how they got involved. Years ago, my mom went to see the Chippendales and she was really excited about what she saw and when she came home she was like, “Oh Kevin, you’ll love it. This is so you.” I thought she was crazy. She kept bothering me till I went to an audition.

And it worked! How was it like easing into the role?
When I started practicing, I found out I was actually a terrible dancer. I had to take dance classes before I got started. The dancing part is very difficult. A lot of guys think that because they can dance at the club, they can also dance to a choreographed piece with ten other guys.

What do you look for when you’re scouting for talent?
Personality is very important when it comes to doing this well. We had some guys who thought they were the king of the world and that they were better than everybody. However, that just doesn’t work.

But it helps to have a hot bod, right?
Yeah, of course. But we will work on that along the way. When we’re at home in Vegas, we go to the gym every day. Our diet is also very important; we eat egg whites, chicken breast, brown rice and other kinds of food that are high in protein but low in carbs and fats. We try to cook as much as we can because that’s the cleanest way to eat. Restaurants put butter, oil and sauces into the food to make it taste better but that makes it just harder to maintain the body. Plus, we do a very high energy show and that involves a lot of cardio. So yes, performing is great exercise.

What is the weirdest thing that you’ve had thrown at you on stage?
We get all kinds of stuff—car keys, underwear, flowers, phone numbers written in underwear, stuffed animals—we get all kinds of fun stuff. I don’t know what’s weird anymore. The girls get really excited when they see the show and they always want to meet the guys. We always arrange to meet the girls after the show and some of them make some indecent proposals then.

Indecent proposals sound like fun! What else is fun about being a Chippendale?
Traveling is great! I’m at the Singapore Grand Prix – that’s really cool! To be able to travel the world with my friends and hang out is really amazing. Plus, a lot of locals recognize us and hook us up with clubs and stuff; it’s great.

Is there anything you wish girls would do to you other than what they’re doing now?
We just want the them to come out and enjoy themselves. The best part of the show is that it’s kind of like a dance party.

Is it hard to be in a relationship when you’re a Chippendale?
It’s very difficult. I’m only home maybe six months a year. I travel a lot. It’s also tough when you’re getting attention from girls all over the world.

Why do you keep coming to Singapore? Do we look like we need the action?
I think girls all over the world need the action. There’s just so much entertainment out there for men but barely enough for women. I think Chippendales is a great thing for women. It’s healthy for relationships and its mental stimulation.

What sparked your interest in cooking?
My mum loved cooking, my grandmother too. My grandmother actually had her own Japanese pastry shop on a small island making manju (Japanese thin-skinned dumplings with red bean paste). I have two older brothers, so I’ve been helping with prep work since I was five. I was very good at peeling and chopping. I also loved to read cook books for kids. It started with making simple food and slowly, I started baking when I was 10. My mum even bought me a special pan to make crepes in. I still have it.

Having lived in Singapore, what are some factors to consider with regards to baking?
The weather and temperature, especially in hot and humid Singapore. For example, I don’t want to temper chocolate here, unless you have a room with good air conditioning. It’s crucial that you can control the temperature and keep it constant. I would say about about 23 or 24 degrees Celsius is the ideal temperature—lower is always better.

Why the intense focus on creating healthy recipes?
Due to health concerns as I’ve gotten older, like trying to cut down or eliminate animal fat, I keep trying to make adjustments and replacements. Whole wheat flour has less gluten, so it’s best for cookies as it doesn’t get as sticky as plain flour. It has a better taste and aroma, and even adds some texture.

What’s the longest you’ve spent on a cake?
Seven days for a wedding cake to feed 150 people. I even have a big fridge that’s only used for storing cakes.

Any advice for aspiring bakers?
Passion. It’s very important. I bake for my family because it makes me happy. I also use local Prima flour. I’ve tried many different brands of flour, but I found that their flour is very suitable for what I do, my recipes. Use European butter and cream and Valrhona chocolate.

Okashi: Sweet Treats Made with Love ($32) is available leading bookstores.

I grew up in old shophouses selling car parts till I was 10. I loved sports; I was a very “outdoors” person and very non-studious. As a teenager I became rebellious, made a lot of mistakes and learned things the hard way.

I come from a huge family, my dad has 14 siblings. As older people say, “Last time there was no TV!”

I quit junior college after a year and planned to go to the States to study. While looking at schools there, I was amazed by the size of the country and how different prices were compared to Asia. I was stirred into doing business instead of pursuing an education.

I opened my first company in 2000, dealing with automotive parts. I started small, but it built up pace and I started to get more passionate about it.

I spent six months in China on my first trip and traveled to 17 cities alone; just knocking on doors, trying to get sales.

Carl’s Jr. was the only fast food I could eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner because it felt like it was proper food. After signing the deal for the franchise, I went to the US to train for four months, feeding fries into the fryer and learning how to be a restaurant manager; that’s when I fell in love with the food industry.

People thought we were crazy back then, the market was already so crowded. There were 147 McDonald’s, 56 Burger Kings and more than 70 KFCs. For a moment I asked myself too, “Are we crazy?”, but it’s been five years so I think we’re safe.

We want to say, “Burgers are not for kids anymore”.

I’ve had a piece of paper with me that last 10 years. It’s a saying from Meng Zi (Mencius), which tells us that if great responsibility is given to a person, he must go through hardship, pain, hunger, total loss and emptiness. Only then will that person be stable and withstand all challenges in life to come.

I carry a personal pair of chopsticks because I think about the trees that die just to make chopsticks for cup noodles. I cherish life a lot, it shouldn’t be wasted.

Whatever extravagant lifestyle comes with the job is a plus point, but it’s the mental satisfaction that I look for in business.

My passion in life is art, because to me, everything is art. I have a full body tattoo about the life of Zeus. I want to show the world that being tattooed doesn’t mean you can’t be successful.

I want to help youngsters out there. I want to tell those who’ve made mistakes not to give up. If there’s a will, there’s a way.

I won’t say in terms of wealth that I’m successful, but in terms of people, I’m very successful. People are more important than anything.

I started writing a diary when I started my business, and I still write today because what’s happening today is important.

I hope that the people who are with me now will walk with me my entire life. The day a person leaves this world is the day that you will know if they were successful; it’s what’s left behind.

987FM DJ and crooner Vanessa Fernandez is in high demand, alright. Despite trudging full steam ahead with her full-time radio career, Fernandez has also been exercising her vocal chords at local music gigs. Now almost a household name in the Lion City’s mini music industry, Fernandez is getting ready to drop it like it’s hot at this year’s Singapore Grand Prix, where she will be sharing the performance arena with superstars such as Mariah Carey, Chris Daughtry and Adam Lambert.

The coolest people on the local hip hop & R&B block are … Sixx, ShiggaShay and Mark Bonafide.

I hate … boys who don’t call you back.

I love … boys who call you back.

My best gig … just happened at TAB with The Brown Note. The crowd was good. OK wait, actually it’s a tie with my gig at the Esplanade, where I did a solo show and folks like Alicia Pan and Budak Pantai jammed with me. It was awesome.

My biggest pet peeve on radio is… stupid callers who call in to join the contest and yet still ask me what the prize is. I’m always like, “I don’t want to give the prize to this guy.”

I would kill for … a collaboration with Mark Ronson.

If I had a million dollars … I would a buy a house in Bali with a recording studio and chill there.

I want to visit … New York because everybody keeps talking about how amazing it is.

My worst habit is … smoking.

When I grow up, I want to … share the dinner table with Bill Gates, Nelson Mandela, President Barack Obama, Jay-Z and Jake Gyllenhaal, who will be my date. He could also be the dessert.

I am dying to … see Mariah Carey and Raphael Siddiq in person.

Vanessa Fernandez will be performing on Sep 26, 3:30pm. Zone 4 Esplanade Park Stage, 1 Esplanade Dr., 6471-7631. $128 (Zone 4 Walkabout) from www.singaporegp.sg.