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April 11, 2025

When the U.S. Department of State’s Office of Art in Embassies needed art for a new consulate building in Chiang Mai, Thailand, in 2019, they called on now former faculty member Jon Isherwood, Director for the Center for the Advancement of Public Action (CAPA) Susan Sgorbati, and 51�������� students to submit a proposal.

Bennington was a proven entity. Faculty and students had developed a unique and highly collaborative art-making process, underwent a rigorous evaluation, and oversaw the successful installation of a trio of pieces for the U.S. Embassy in Oslo, Norway, in 2017.

“Because they had worked with us before, we had a track record,” said Sgorbati. “We had developed not only artworks for these public spaces but a way of creating artwork that resonates with the place where it is installed.”

THE PROCESS

As they had for Norway, Isherwood and Sgorbati formed a class around the project, which attracted students studying an array of disciplines, including visual arts, politics, environmental action, poetry, history, dance, and others. “The most important thing was not to start with what the artwork would look like,” Isherwood said. Megan Banda ’24, a student on the project elaborated. “It started off getting us to understand, ‘what is public art? What does that mean?’ From monuments to murals to street art, we were examining the things that we encounter in public spaces and how they connect us and how they spark dialog.”

Then, Isherwood and Sgorbati directed the students to choose an aspect of Thailand’s culture—its landscape, arts, history, literature, traditions, commerce, politics, and ecological activity—and conduct thorough research. The class welcomed a steady stream of virtual guests to class, including artists and curators, diplomats, and a geographer. Students researched the history of the relationship between the United States and Thailand in an effort to identify shared values and patterns that could represent the relationship.

THE DESIGN

The next step was to translate the research into the forms, shapes, and colors that presented an idea for consideration. The focus of the Chiang Mai work was on speech. Jessica Smith ’23 studied art at Bennington and is now in her second year at Vermont Law School. “The individual right to freedom of speech is in question around the world,” she said. “The piece includes our hopes that [freedom of speech] will be restored and continue for everybody wherever they are at whatever time they need to use their voice.”

With the voice as a starting point, students experimented with translating recordings of their own voices into visual elements. They were surprised to find that each of their voices made a unique pattern. They used those patterns along with their own designs and motifs from Thai culture to create a series of 6 etched glass disks each six feet in diameter. These translucent lenses are stacked parallel to one another along the consular walkway. The placement allows viewers to look through them or to see each one individually.

ADDING SENSES

In addition, the site provided an opportunity to create a design for the top of a low wall, 62 feet long, leading visitors up to the consulate waiting room. For this our students recorded their own voices and the voices of Thai college students studying with Karma Sirikogar at Silpakorn University International College in Bangkok, reading phrases and poetry each student developed in their own languages and reflecting on their shared values.

They added imagery of resounding elements from Vermont’s and Chiang Mai’s landscapes. The two areas are remarkably similar geographically, Smith said. “Both have rivers and mountains. Both are agrarian. They have villages at the bottoms of their mountains, so we represented that in the piece.” The students’ images were designed to be translated into mosaics by วิเศษศิลป์, Wises Silp, a multigenerational family of mosaic artists in Suphan, Thailand.

“We envisioned a person approaching the consulate for a visa having a calming contemplative moment as they view and run their hand along the mosaic on the top of the wall,” said Isherwood. “The idea was to create a journey that would relax and engage the people coming to the consulate.”

As they were nearing the end of the project, “four years of intense knowledge and research,” Banda said, “I just knew that people had to hear us because we have had a lot to say, and our voices.... It’s how we were connecting to each other and how we are reaching each other.” Banda and Smith along with Tanner Criswell ’24 composed an original sound score from the voice recordings they had collected. It was a last- minute addition but one that Banda, Criswell, and Smith felt passionately about.

Consul General Lisa Buzenas commented, “I am truly grateful to the students at 51�������� for their collaboration with Thai students and artists in creating this meaningful and beautiful mosaic tile and glass voice-circle artwork that will welcome millions of visitors to the U.S. Consulate General Chiang Mai for generations to come.” She continued, “The art exemplifies the cooperation and collaboration that has been the foundation of the U.S.-Thai partnership for more than 190 years.”

The class met for three consecutive terms and extended a further 18 months for a smaller group of students including Banda, Smith, and Criswell. Altogether more than eighty individuals engaged on the project. Banda summarized. “We let each other’s exploration build the outcome, which speaks to the journey that we went through, from research to design to collaboration, even cross-continental collaboration with people in Thailand,” she said. “I think that’s at the heart of what we all aimed to do, to have an exchange of ideas, of people, of talents.” The opening of the Chiang Mai consulate is planned for this summer.