A Thai artist who grew up building empires as King Ramkhamhaeng in the video game Civilization has turned his dual obsession with history and gaming into one of the most talked-about works at a brand-new Bangkok museum.
Nawin Nuthong, 33, is the artist behind Project 147 (2026), a multimedia installation commissioned by the Chanel Culture Fund as the inaugural Chanel Gateway Commission at Dib Bangkok, a contemporary art museum that opened in December 2025. The work draws on the Thai folk epic Khun Chang Khun Phaen, a poem of love and tragedy, and asks a deceptively simple question: what is history?
In the game at the heart of the installation, a child protagonist walks into a forest and puts that exact question to the trees. While waiting for an answer, the child explores a world populated by mythic creatures, deities and artefacts — more than 600 of them — each offering clues or competing interpretations of history and immortality. Red curtains divide the screens and consoles from the rest of the exhibition, which includes a table stacked with plastic cabbages and a sculptural relief of temple columns wrapped in silk-like fabric, a nod to religious hierarchies in Buddhism and Hinduism.
Project 147 sits inside Dib Bangkok's second major exhibition, "Giving Life", which brings together 33 artists whose works activate in the presence of viewers. Museum director Miwako Tezuka sees gaming as a way in for visitors who might find contemporary art intimidating — its visual and narrative language, she notes, is global, so it gives new audiences an easy entry point.
Nawin has a second work on show in the region. Play_ (2026) is at M+ in Hong Kong's West Kowloon Cultural District, where visitors use a joystick to guide a small child through an interactive maze of cartoons, video games and short animations. It's part of the Chanel Culture Fund's wider push in Asia, which also includes backing Apichatpong Weerasethakul's VR installation at the Bangkok Experimental Film Festival and a lead partnership with M+.
For travellers, this is a good excuse to see Bangkok's art scene at an interesting moment. Dib Bangkok only opened in late 2025, so a visit now means catching a young institution finding its feet — and a show built around the idea that visitors, not curators, get to decide what history means. "Giving Life" runs until May 3, 2027 at 111 Soi Sukhumvit 40, with Play_ at M+ until January 10, 2027. If you're already plotting a Bangkok trip in that window, factor in a slow afternoon here — and pair it with the city's other major private museums for a full art-day loop.
