STEFANO RABOLLI PANSERA
Stefano Rabolli Pansera, 2024. Courtesy Khao Yai Art.
Stefano Rabolli Pansera is an architect and curator with a career spanning architecture, contemporary art, and cultural institutions. He graduated with Honours from the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London in 2005 before joining Herzog & de Meuron in Basel, where he worked from 2005 to 2007. From 2007 to 2011, he taught at the Architectural Association as a Unit Master.
In 2013, he founded Beyond Entropy Ltd, a curatorial agency operating at the intersection of art, architecture, and geopolitics, developing projects across Africa, Europe, and the Mediterranean. That same year, he curated the Angola Pavilion at La Biennale di Venezia, which was awarded the Golden Lion for Best National Participation.
In 2015, he designed the Mangiabarche open-air gallery and directed the exhibition program for MACC, a non-profit art space in southwestern Sardinia. From 2017 to 2022, he served as Director of Hauser & Wirth Gallery in London and ledthe opening of Hauser & Wirth St. Moritz, while simultaneously working on institutional projects in Europe and Asia, including collaborations with Christoph Büchel and the Panza Collection.
Since 2022, he has been the Founder and Artistic Director of the St. Moritz Art Film Festival, curating a moving-image program structured around a cohesive curatorial narrative evolving over multiple editions.
In the same year, he became the Founding Director of Bangkok Kunsthalle and Khao Yai Art Forest, overseeing architectural projects and exhibition programs. His curatorial work has included installations by many artists including Michel Auder, Yoko Ono, Korakrit Arunanondchai, Richard Nonas, Tang Chang, Absalon, Fujiko Nakaya, Louise Bourgeois, Richard Long, Elmgreen & Dragset, Ubatsat, and Francesco Arena.
LUCIJA ŠUTEJ: Your curatorial practice is incredibly diverse. From your start in architecture (working for Herzog & de Meuron) to founding a film festival in Switzerland. Your work continually pushes the boundaries of curatorial possibilities - and now you are transporting the exhibition setting to a forest. Are there specific artists, thinkers, or movements that have profoundly influenced your approach to curating and institution-building?
STEFANO RABOLLI PANSERA: My curatorial approach is deeply rooted in an architectural understanding of space - not just as a physical construct but as a mental projection shaped by perception, memory, and narrative. This stems from my architectural upbringing and my time at the Architectural Association School of Architecture (AA), where one of my teachers, Pascal Schöning, introduced me to the idea that space is not merely built but conceptualized. He used film as a primary vehicle for spatial exploration, reinforcing how cinema can structure, distort, and reimagine space in ways that traditional architectural methods cannot.
When I later taught at the AA, I extended this line of thought through the brief of my unit, where students were asked to create a trailer for a building that did not exist. This exercise was about pushing beyond the material reality of architecture - engaging with its conceptual and discursive dimensions.
While my background in architecture influenced my understanding of art, my curatorial direction was further influenced by certain thinkers and artists who manipulate space in ways that challenge perception, memory, and social constructs such as Michael Asher, Bruce Nauman, Elizabeth Grosz, and many others. However, the three artists who truly changed my way of thinking about space are: Christoph Büchel, Michel Auder, and William Leavitt. Büchel’s immersive, hyper-detailed installations create parallel universes that collapse reality and fiction. Walking into his environments is like stepping into fully functioning but unsettling alternative worlds. Michel Auder’s cinematic works explore the clash between personal narratives and urban space, using the moving image to question how intimate stories and public narratives interact. His films are not just about space but are made of space, layering architectural environments with intimate moments and fragmented realities. Finally, William Leavitt’s installations, often composed of seemingly banal domestic objects, operate like theatrical sets, triggering mental relationships between the viewer and the spatial environment. He demonstrates how props and minimal architectural gestures can constitute spaces.
Ultimately, my curatorial approach draws from these ideas–focusing on how exhibitions can function as an immersive, site-responsive environment whether in a gallery, a forest, or a film festival. Through these influences, my work continues to explore space not as a static entity but as an ongoing story where one project (be it a Film Festival, a building or a kunsthalle) often develops and unfolds into the next one.
LŠ: Do you see yourself more as a curator or an architect?
SRP: I see myself as an architect. I shall say an “architect out of track”—someone who still thinks architecturally but works beyond the boundaries of a conventional building. Instead of using concrete materials, I use art to model space.
During my work as founder of Beyond Entropy, I adopted Jean-Luc Godard’s motto: “Change nothing so that everything is different.” This statement resonates deeply with me because it underscores the idea that transformation is not necessarily about building or changing things, but about shifting the relationship between things. It aligns with my interest in creating spaces that challenge expectations, often by reconfiguring what already exists rather than imposing something new. Architecture today is in a state of crisis—completely absorbed by the construction industry and economic criteria–often reduced to a spectacle. In contrast, I see architecture as a critical practice—an act of resistance against the compulsion to build, where I engage in conceptual spatial interventions that challenge how we experience, perceive, and inhabit the world.
Installation views of Angola’s pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale, proposed by the Beyond Entropy, 2012. Images courtesy of Beyond Entropy.
Luanda, Encyclopedic City, Pavilion of the Republic of Angola, 55th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. Palazzo Cini. Courtesy of Beyond Entropy. Photo Credits: Paolo Utimpergher.
Steve Bishop, Pages from the publication Focus II, 2013. Courtesy of the artist and Beyond Entropy Limited.
LŠ: What advice would you give to young curators or artists looking to work outside traditional museum settings?
SRP: Rather than offering advice, I am more interested in learning from young artists and curators - understanding the ways they navigate, inhabit, and conceptualize space in a rapidly changing world. Every generation brings new modes of dwelling and thinking, and the dynamics of exhibition-making are continually evolving in response to technological, social, and ecological shifts.
As Osip Mandelstam once wrote: “ Perhaps the whisper was born before lips,
And the leaves in treelessness circled and flew,
And those, to whom we impart our experience as bliss,
Acquire their forms before we do ”
This sentiment resonates with my approach. The most radical transformations often come from disruptive, emergent voices, rather than established paradigms. My role, therefore, is not to suggest methodologies but to remain engaged in an ongoing dialogue: absorbing, questioning, and reconfiguring curatorial frameworks in response to the new forms of artistic production and spatial interventions that younger practitioners bring forward.
LŠ: The story of a new museum model starts with Khao Yai Art and the shared vision with the arts patron Marisa Chearavanont - perhaps we could define the mission for the readers.
SRP: Khao Yai Art Forest emerges from Khun Marisa’s fundamental desire to heal–a vision that extends across two contrasting yet interconnected landscapes. Bangkok Kunsthalle is about Healing the Urban Jungle. It is a transformation of the former Thai Wattana Panich publishing house in the heart of Bangkok’s Chinatown into the Bangkok Kunsthalle. Once a center of intellectual production, the building had become a derelict, forgotten structure. However, the project does not treat it as a neutral, passive container for art but rather as an active and generative force: a place that alters the artworks it houses just as much as it is transformed by them.
Marisa Chearavanont, 2024. Photo by Mr. Peter Richweisz, Desert Fish Production. Courtesy of Khao Yai Art.
Khao Yai Forest is about Healing the Natural Forest, specifically, a large plot of land in Khao Yai, which had suffered severe environmental degradation due to intensive agriculture over the past thirty years. Here, the challenge was not just conservation but reimagining how contemporary art could engage with an ecosystem in recovery. Like the building in Chinatown, the forest is not a passive receptacle but an agent of transformation. It shifts the way art is conceived, created, and experienced.
Richard Long, Madrid Circle, 1988, 1160 x 1160 cm, Stones, Khao Yai Art Forest, Courtesy Khao Yai Art. Photo by Andrea Rossetti.
Richard Long, Madrid Circle, 1988, 1160 x 1160 cm, Stones, Khao Yai Art Forest, Courtesy Khao Yai Art. Photo by Krittawat Atthsis and Puttisin Choojesroom.
Francesco Arena, GOD, 2024, 260 x 220 x 620 cm, Stones, Khao Yai Art Forest, Courtesy Khao Yai Art. Photo by Andrea Rossetti.
In both the Kunsthalle and the Art Forest, the context is not just a setting: it is an integral part of the artwork itself. These are not conventional exhibition spaces; they are active forces that shape and challenge the artworks placed within them. The derelict publishing house does not simply “host” exhibitions; it confronts the works with its history, its layered decay, and its shifting function. Artworks must navigate its residual narratives, architectural scars, and fragmented past. Ultimately, the artworks lead the architectural transformation. In the same way, the forest is not a blank canvas but a dynamic, unpredictable environment - where light, humidity, wind, and the slow return of biodiversity constantly reshape the meaning and materiality of the art. This reciprocity is crucial: the artworks change the space, redefining how it is perceived, remembered, and used.
The space invites change in the artworks - demanding new formats, and conceptual approaches.By breaking away from traditional museum constraints, both sites force artists to rethink their practice, embracing impermanence, site-specificity, and the interplay between art and space. This creates an evolving dialogue where neither the artwork nor the environment remains static, each continuously reshapes the other.
LŠ: And what are the biggest challenges you have faced so far in realising projects on the locations - perhaps we can revisit specific projects?
SRP: One of the biggest challenges in both Khao Yai Art Forest and Bangkok Kunsthalle has been understanding how space actively shapes and conditions the artworks, rather than merely serving as a neutral exhibition site. This has required not just artistic vision but also architectural, environmental, and technical interventions to align the projects with their respective settings.
Two projects illustrate these complexities, take the example of Fujiko Nakaya’s Fog Forest in Khao Yai Art Forest. For the artist, whose ephemeral fog sculptures respond to atmospheric conditions, the challenge was how to create a permanent installation in a natural environment. Unlike her urban or museum fog sculptures, where the built environment limits the way mist behaves, in Khao Yai we had to modify the landscape itself to control the fog’s dissipation. The existing hill had to be reshaped to ensure that the slope would delay the dissipation of the fog, allowing the mist to linger longer before vanishing. The most significant challenge was achieving the level of precision and control over the land’s geometry that would meet the artist’s expectations. Unlike traditional sculptural projects, which rely on material stability, this required working with unpredictable natural forces such as humidity, wind, and temperature, to choreograph the fog’s movements as an ongoing, site-specific performance.
Fujiko Nakaya, Khao Yai Fog Forest, Fog Landscape #48435, 2024, Khao Yai Art Forest, Courtesy Khao Yai Art. Photo by Andrea Rossetti.
And for the Korakrit Arunanondchai’s “Nostalgia for Unity” in Bangkok Kunsthalle, the challenge was conceptual rather than environmental: how to strip an artist’s work down to its fundamental elements and push them beyond their usual practice. The artist, known for his iconic paintings, immersive videos, and fire installations, was invited to go entirely out of his comfort zone as the exhibition imposed radical restrictions of: no paintings, no flames, and no videos. Instead, he was asked to focus entirely on the floor: a part of the exhibition space he rarely engages with in his work. Ultimately, this approach became “Korakrit without Korakrit”, an experiment in absence and redefinition. By limiting the expected elements of his practice, the project forced a shift in perspective.
Korakrit Arunanondchai, nostalgia for unity, 2024, Bangkok Kunsthalle, Courtesy Khao Yai Art.
Both projects illustrate a fundamental principle of curatorial and architectural intervention: that art and space are not separate, but interdependent. Each project required a deep rethinking of the relationship between the artwork and its setting, proving that exhibitions are not just about placing art in space: they constitute the space by negotiating new relationships and conditions that fundamentally alter the way the artwork is created, experienced, and understood.
LŠ: How do you see the role of artists and their interventions within the environmental preservation of Khao Yai Art Forest?
SRP: The word preservation is not the right definition for what we are doing in Khao Yai Art Forest. Preservation and consumption are two sides of the same coin: both are expressions of the impossibility of true use. As Giorgio Agamben has pointed out, the paradigm of use is irreconcilable with the paradigm of preservation. To preserve something is, in many ways, to deny its real use.
Instead, we want to “use” and dwell in the forest - not as a resource to be extracted, but as a space to be activated through artistic and ecological practices. This idea follows the precepts of Forest Buddhism, where engaging with the environment is not about imposing control or protecting it from interaction but about living within it, moving through it, and being part of its transformation. This is why we do not buy already-made artworks nor commission artworks that “decorate” the forest; we collaborate with artists who work with nature, with local materials, with farming, and with the rhythms of the land. The goal is not to place sculptures in the forest, but to intertwine artistic interventions with the cycles and materiality of the landscape itself. For example, we are exploring projects that involve edible gardens - landscapes cultivated not just as artworks but as functional, living environments that sustain both the land and the people who inhabit it.
Ubatsat, Pilgrimage to Eternity, 2024, Dimensions Variable, Site-specific Sculpture, Khao Yai Art Forest, Courtesy Khao Yai Art. Photo by Krittawat Atthsis and Puttisin Choojesroom.
Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook, Two Planets Series, 2007, 200 x 250 cm, Video installation, Khao Yai Art Forest, Courtesy Khao Yai Art. Photo by Andrea Rossetti.
My ultimate vision is to reach a point where art is no longer recognized as “art” in the conventional sense. An institution where we are surrounded by artworks that do not announce themselves as such. Where the boundary between nature, function, and artistic expression is dissolved. A garden that is not just a garden, but an artwork. A path that is not just a path, but an artwork. A shift in temperature, a change in humidity, a movement of light - subtle, imperceptible shifts that are the artwork, rather than framing something external. This approach challenges the way we think about what constitutes an artistic intervention -it moves beyond the classical division between nature and culture, landscape and exhibition, object and experience.
LŠ: What’s next for the Art Forest?
SRP: The next major intervention at Khao Yai Art Forest will be by Delcy Morelos, an artist known for her deep engagement with earth, ritual, and organic materiality.
We are looking to present her project which consists of a 400-meter-long table covered by a roof, situated around an existing formation of excavated rocks. Without altering the landscape dramatically, the table frames will activate already present objects - turning a natural formation into a place of gathering, contemplation, and interaction. This project perfectly embodies our approach: rather than bringing an external artwork into the forest, it reveals, reframes, and intensifies what is already present -allowing art and nature to exist in continuous dialogue.
LŠ: The Bangkok Kunsthalle is a new and exciting museum model, where artists participate in the physical and theoretical creation of the new institution. You described it as a space where the curatorial program is also an architectural project. What was the inspiration behind the Kunsthalle?
SRP: The inspiration for the Bangkok Kunsthalle did not come from a single reference: it is not a replication of an existing model but the creation of a new paradigm. While many interventions influenced the project, there was never a clear benchmark, because the Kunsthalle is not just a “museum”, it is an evolving structure that challenges the conventional relationship between architecture and curating.
One of the most significant architectural references is Palais de Tokyo by Lacaton & Vassal. It is a masterpiece, not because it adds to the existing building, but because it strategically strips it down - revealing the layers of history, exposing raw structures, and creating an open-ended space where exhibitions unfold dynamically. However, despite its radical approach, Palais de Tokyo still remains within the architectural realm: it is still an intentional, designed space. The Bangkok Kunsthalle takes this further: it does not simply strip away but allows for a slow, unpredictable transformation over time, shaped by the curatorial program itself. Instead of architecture dictating the exhibitions, the exhibitions dictate the architecture. It is a space in continuous negotiation with the artworks it hosts, never fully fixed, never entirely known.
Bangkok Kunsthalle, 2024, Courtesy Khao Yai Art. Photos by Andrea Rossetti.
Each exhibition in the Kunsthalle leaves a trace: whether material, conceptual, or spatial. The building does not return to a neutral state after a show ends. Instead, each intervention extends the palimpsest of the space, and over time, these traces accumulate, creating a history embedded in the architecture itself. This process resists the typical cycle of install, display, erase, repeat. In conventional institutions, exhibitions are transient: they exist for a moment and then disappear, leaving the space unchanged. In the Kunsthalle, however, each exhibition alters the DNA of the building.
Beyond architecture, the curatorial approach of Stefan Kalmar at ICA London was another source of inspiration. Kalmar redefined the ICA as a space where institutional identity was fluid, where exhibitions were not merely displayed but actively questioned the very framework of the institution itself-this curatorial sensibility is embedded in the Kunsthalle. It is not a museum, nor a white cube, nor an alternative space, it is something that resists definition, because definition implies closure, and closure is the opposite of what we are building. Instead, the Kunsthalle is an unfinished project, a “ruin in reverse”, a place that grows in response to the artists, audiences, and ideas that move through it.
Ultimately, the Kunsthalle emerges as a new type of space - one where architecture is no longer a backdrop for exhibitions but a constantly shifting, co-evolving entity, reshaped over time by the curatorial process itself.
LŠ: The building itself is utterly unique, a city in small, it spans four separate units that were previously the home to one of Thailand's largest publishers. How will you build upon the tradition and the original identity of the building?
SRP: The identity of the Bangkok Kunsthalle is not fixed- it is constructed and reconstructed every day by the activities that take place within it. To sustain this living identity, we maintain a regular set of activities that keep the space in a state of perpetual transformation. From talks, symposia, and discussions, to exhibitions and screenings, we are ensuring that the Kunsthalle is a site of intellectual exchange, not just display.
In honor of the building’s former use as a publishing house (Thai Wattana Panich), we are also considering a series of pop-up bookshops and publishing zines - a way to reactivate the history of the space while expanding its cultural function beyond exhibitions. This approach treats the Kunsthalle not just as a place to experience art, but as a generator of knowledge, archives, and new ways of engaging with artistic thought.
One of the earliest exhibitions at the Kunsthalle, Yoko Ono’s Mend Piece, loaned to us by the A4 Foundation, perfectly encapsulates the philosophy of the space. The work is not about pottery: it is about healing. It speaks to the act of repair as a collective gesture, which resonates deeply with the Kunsthalle’s approach to curating, architecture, and community-building.To activate this work, we created the longest table ever used for a “Mend Piece”, extending it to accommodate 80 seats. While we followed Yoko Ono’s instructions precisely, the scale of our intervention transformed the artwork into an urban ritual. The table became more than just a site for fixing broken ceramics: it became a public square, a meeting place, a communal act of care and restoration. By inviting people to join us in the process of mending, we turned the artwork into a metaphor for the Kunsthalle itself: a space that is constantly being reshaped, repaired, and reconstructed through participation.
Yoko Ono, Mend Piece, Bangkok Kunsthalle, A4 Arts Foundation, Cape Town version, 1966/2018, Courtesy Khao Yai Art. Photo by Andrea Rossetti.
In this way, both the building’s history and its present activities are inseparable: the past is not erased but reactivated, and the space remains open-ended–always in the process of becoming.
LŠ: What’s next for the Kunsthalle - are there upcoming exhibitions or projects you’re particularly excited about? You spoke of cinema on the rooftop of the Kunsthalle.
SRP: The upcoming exhibitions at Bangkok Kunsthalle continue our commitment to investigating the relationship between space, landscape, and the act of dwelling - themes that have shaped the institution from the very beginning. Two major projects in the coming year embody this philosophy through different yet interconnected approaches.
Abbas Akhavan’s practice explores the intersection of landscape, architecture, and memory, and his upcoming exhibition at the Kunsthalle consists of a series of three installations that gravitate around the creation of a natural oasis inside the building. We are excited to see how Akhavan will challenge the spatial identity of the Kunsthalle, turning it into a site where nature infiltrates architecture, reversing conventional notions of inside and outside, artificial and organic.
Another upcoming exhibition, Description Without a Place, will engage directly with the nature of dwelling by reconstructing the exhibition copies of Absalon’s Six Cells, the visionary modular living structures the artist designed but never saw fully realized. Absalon’s cells were conceived as spaces of radical autonomy, challenging standard ideas of domesticity, function, ownership and control. By recreating these spaces in the Kunsthalle, the exhibition questions: How do we inhabit and define the spaces in which we live? What happens when architecture is reduced to its most essential conditions? Can an art institution become a space for experiments in dwelling, rather than just a site for exhibition? We are interested to see these artistic interventions that will highlight how architecture shapes behavior, and how our relationship with the built environment is constantly negotiated.
LŠ: How do you see the Kunsthalle evolving- are there specific goals or milestones you’re working toward? How do you see the relationship between the Kunsthalle and the Art Forest unfolding - are there plans to connect these two spaces more closely?
SRP: Our long-term vision is structured across three different scales: architectural, urban, and global - each reinforcing the Kunsthalle’s role as an active force of transformation. Our aim is to curate enough exhibitions to progressively activate every part of the Kunsthalle. The building is not treated as a completed space but as an evolving one - floor by floor, intervention by intervention. Over time, it will not just be a place for exhibitions, but a living archive of artistic transformations, where each project leaves its imprint on the space itself.
And beyond the Kunsthalle’s walls, we are committed to using it as an urban activator - a territorial marker that engages with the broader context of Bangkok’s Chinatown. Rather than imposing a sanitized, institutional presence, the Kunsthalle seeks to integrate with the neighborhood.We are seeking to work beyond the building–initiating projects that spill out into the streets, markets, and surrounding spaces.
Our ambition is to position the Bangkok Kunsthalle as one of the leading cultural forces in the global landscape. This is not simply about representation but about restructuring the art world’s center-periphery dynamic. The Kunsthalle is an institution that aims to shift the geopolitics of art both in the region and globally. Southeast Asia is not a secondary art market or an emerging scene - it is a critical, central force in contemporary culture. Further, by engaging with artists, thinkers, and institutions beyond traditional Western networks, the Kunsthalle challenges the dominant narratives of global art discourse.
Komtouch Napattaloong, Infringes Film Program, 2024, Bangkok Kunsthalle, Courtesy Khao Yai Art. Photo by Andrea Rossetti.
Emma McCormick Goodhart, glai glaai, 2024, Bangkok Kunsthalle, Courtesy Khao Yai Art.
Cole Lu Residency at Bangkok Kunsthalle, 2024, Courtesy Khao Yai Art. Photo by Krittawat Atthsis and Puttisin Choojesroom.
The Kunsthalle is not a finished model: it is a space that continues to grow, shift, and redefine itself over time. Just as each exhibition leaves a physical and conceptual trace, the institution itself remains in flux, adapting to new artistic and social conditions. Through our architectural expansion, urban interventions, and global positioning, we aim to create an art institution that is not just located in Bangkok, but that actively reshapes the way we think about art institutions as a whole, where curating is not about organizing exhibitions, but about building a new cultural architecture altogether.
Natalie Brück, Working On The Imaginary Object, 2024, Bangkok Kunsthalle, Courtesy Khao Yai Art. Photo by Sivakorn Charoenyothin.
