Coastal Community Art in Public Spaces: New Landscape from Participatory Visual Art Creation in Memorable Area of Thung Tuek

Abstract

This research aimed to study and analyze 1) the main idea about coastal community art in public spaces in order to create community art works in a memorable area, Thung Tuek and 2) the concept of community art. A mixed method approach, combining a qualitative research method and a visual art action research method, was used to gather the quantitative and qualitative data. A literature review and fieldwork, i.e., environmental information, a way of life and fine arts, were used to gather the quantitative data. While interviews and focus group interviews from local people in Khokao, Takua Pa, Phang-Nga were used to gather the qualitative data. The interviews were related to the local people’ opinions on community art. The results from the quantitative method approach found that community art in public spaces played a key role for 1) local people’ participation in knowledge and opinion sharing, 2) local people’ participation in art activities and art creation, and 3) community art process performance leading to a government policy. These can bring about acceptance and value-added from art works. The results of the creative research showed that the community art reflected the prosperity of an ancient civilization with environmental aesthetics. Since the researchers developed a community art model by aesthetic art deconstruction and reconstruction, it brought about a new landscape from community art creation. The above results can be discussed as follows: 1) languages, 2) the participation of coastal community art, 3) spaces, and 4) a government policy.