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Published on October 29, 2007

Chakkrit Buakaew, a lecturer at Burapha University's Faculty of Fine and Applied Arts, is now worried about one thing.

"I'm afraid that Thailand Creative and Design Centre (TCDC) will become just a library operator while other activities like exhibitions, workshops and special talks by internationally famous designers will be neglected," Chakkrit said.

His comment followed the recent decision by the Office of Knowledge Management and Development (OKMD) to merge TCDC with the National Discovery Museum Institute (NDMI). The merged units will become Thailand Discovery and Creative Centre. Earlier, due to redundancy, two of seven units under the office - the National Institute for Brain-based Learning and the National Centre for the Gifted and Talented - were merged to create the Centre for the Promotion of the Gifted and Learning Innovations.

This move attracted public attention, given that TCDC is famous among designers and students in this field, mostly through the extravagant office at The Emporium and the mini-TCDC in five provincial universities - Burapha, Khon Kaen, Thammasat's Lampang Campus, Chiang Mai and Mahasarakham.

Against criticism that OKMD acted under anti-Thaksin pressure, OKMD chairman Apinan Poshyananda said: "All the board members have worked carefully and there was no bullying or political agenda."

Backing him up is Khunying Chodchoy Sophonpanich, chairman of Thailand Knowledge Park, a unit of OKMD. While admitting that TCDC and NDMI are different animals - NDMI targets schoolchildren whereas TCDC focuses on university students and young adults - TCDC has so far focused only on high-end people.

"It has a good concept but there is no concrete success. Thai designs likely to win international awards are not in our sight. Moreover, while bringing in international concepts, TCDC lacks the links to encourage Thais to develop good designs for their products. Beneficiaries are mostly designers who are serving foreign companies. Obviously Thai products would not benefit from this centre," she said.

While OKMD defended the budget in front of the National Legislative Assembly, it was also told to dissolve TCDC due to the lack of such links, Chodchoy said.

Still, the board decided to keep it but the organisation would need to answer the question of how it could benefit a larger group of people, she noted.

Surapone Virulrak, director of the newly created Thailand Discovery and Design Centre, said that under the new unit, all activities of TCDC will be maintained, but with the limited budget it will need to realign employment policies. He noted that NDMI and TCDC can complement each other. While NDMI exhibitions present facts, TCDC encourages visitors to come up with new ideas. NDMI now also has provincial TCDC channels.

"The new unit will focus on creativity enhancement. TCDC merely presents new ideas but it will have to create commercial values," he said.

The merger is in response to the overall budget cut for OKMD from Bt2 billion a year to Bt700 million in the 2008 fiscal year.

TCDC alone spent Bt102 million in decorating its office in the first year. During 2005 and 2006 it paid Bt60 million in rents, and big money was spent on the library which, as of November 15, 2006, housed 15,228 design books, magazines and multimedia - both local and international. It also bought the right to host a permanent exhibition of materials at the corner called Material Connexion Bangkok, which made it one of only four places in the world to house such an exhibition after Milan, Cologne and New York.

Among the main exhibitions were the world premiere of the DNA of Japanese Design touring exhibition and the exhibition on Vivienne Westwood, one of the most influential fashion designers of the last 30 years. So far, the venue has welcomed 680,000 visitors since it was opened in October 2005.

Following the merger is a budget cut, something that should worry the Burapha University lecturer. TCDC could never operate like it did in the past, given that its operational budget will be cut by half to Bt75 billion while staff salaries will be slashed by 30 per cent.

Chakkrit is an open supporter of this centre. He is pleased to see that his design students, about 100, and other students at the university and those in the province, have access to expensive design books at a mini-TCDC. About 200 books are in circulation there.

"The books come free of charge and our university would never have the budget for these rare books as well the other benefits that come with the mini-TCDC," he said.

Chakkrit said he benefited largely from attending workshops and special talks with famous designers and he exchanged those views with his students. The mini-TCDC brings the experiences directly to his students, as it recently started to provide live broadcasts of those events to the five universities and take questions from those students.

He admitted that throughout the two-year history, TCDC initially focused largely on Bangkok people. While its office is in the capital city and too costly for provincial people to travel to, its activities also tended to be reserved for designers and graphic designers who could afford tickets.

Still, with new initiatives, he believes that TCDC is on the right track. Now that it reaches out to more students, these students could become designers in the future. They would then serve a number of companies by designing products and packaging. Eventually, this knowledge will benefit Thailand's design sector as a whole, including Otop products.

"TCDC could not do that now. It's just transferring the knowledge to students so that they could do their jobs," the lecturer said.

The OKMD resolution calls for all TCDC departments to move from the sixth floor of The Emporium shopping mall to the new site at Chamchuri Square in Sam Yan district. The change to TCDC has brought about different reactions from regular visitors.

A 24-year-old new graduate in photography, Ded Chongmankong, said he visited TDCD about three times a month. Coming here is convenient for him as it is linked to the Skytrain. The venue is just the place to meet friends and get some books that match his interests. Ded said he paid little attention to the other resources available at the venue.

"Stimulating creativity is not an urgent matter for the whole country compared to many other issues that we already have to worry about. Therefore, TDCD could be listed among the first centres to be dissolved," he said. He said people could always find ways to get needed resources if they didn't have TCDC. He, himself, would go to bookstores.

Aruncha Chanyaem, a 32-year-old event designer, said TCDC should stay, even though that means it must be merged with other organisations.

"It's a very useful centre for me and for people in the creative field. I like to watch many international creative exhibitions here. TDCD is like a knowledge centre. Visitors can watch many international exhibitions without incurring high travel costs. Even if they have the money to travel abroad, it might not be easy for them to access some of these exhibitions. Also, visitors can get useful books and materials that are often too expensive for many Thais to purchase," he said.

He also expects the government to keep TCDC at The Emporium because convenient transport by Skytrain allows many people to visit. People in many countries like Japan and Europe can create impressive, imaginative designs because they have beautiful and creative inspiration everywhere.

"To emulate these places, TCDC could be the first step for having creativity everywhere," he said.

Chularat Saengpassa

 Achara Deboonme

 Nitida Asawanipont

 The Nation