International performance art festival held at CMU art museum 11 countries represented Chin Ratitamkul The international Performance Art Festival was held at Chiang Mai University (CMU)’s art museum November 20-23. 14 artists from 11 countries took part, including Thailand, Belarus, Germany, Ireland, Spain, France, China, Philippines, Poland, Japan, and Vietnam. This was the first time Thailand had a chance to exchange with artists from the former Eastern Bloc and the Western Bloc. Indonesian Wawan Christiawan poured liquefied wax over his body and called it “Action Poetry” performance art. Chumpon Apisuk, the director of Asiatopia Working Committee, explained performance art as a show of procedures as a work of art itself. “When we go to the art museums or studios, all that you can see are completed works of art,” said Chumpon. By comparison, performance art shows movement, emotion and imagination from the beginning until the end of the performance. The artists could apply any art techniques such as drawing, painting, spraying, sculpturing, and dancing. Wawan Christiawan, an artist from Indonesia, called his performance art “Action Poetry”. He said that it did not only come from subjective consciousness as an ideological response towards socio-cultural problems, but also was a manifestation of the artist’s interior self-exploration. It was an unusual activity performed in the usual world. It could be read as multi interpretable text. It took the risk of becoming “something” or “nothing at all,” Wawan concluded.

Action Poetry can be viewed as one of contemporary arts belonging to non-representasional genre. It does not come up from subjective consciouness as ideological response towards socio-cultural problems, but also a manifestasion of artist's interior self -exploration.Action poetry is unusual activity made up from usual world.It could be read as multi-interpretable text.Thereby, it takes the risk become 'something' or 'nothing at all'