Rewarding experience

The objective of the society is to allow art and design students from Thailand to exchange ideas and work cohesively and creatively together, enabling them to form friendships and unifying them within the university. In addition, the society helps Thai students settle into a vastly different culture and environment by providing support for each other.

After graduating from Geelong Grammar School in Australia, I travelled to London to study art and design at Central Saint Martins. Having met Thai people within the university, Varisa Passkornatee and I came up with the initial idea of setting up a Thai Society within the UAL to enable us to organise gatherings and events similar those in other universities in London.

Hence, we invited Juraibon Phataraprasit, Rajitkaew Tangsakul and Nara Auapinyakul to join and set up the society. During the establishment of this organisation, Varisa and I created 100 posters to advertise. I designed a shirt and the Thai Society logo, which is a bird standing atop a pencil. It is meant to symbolise freedom in art.

After a holiday, when we were all back in London, we organised a welcome party at Hyde Park. Our friends were encouraged to invite more people and the turnout for the party was overwhelming. This was a significant turning point for the society.

After more gatherings, we took a step further by organising a Thai night, the "Sound from the Field of Love Musical & Fashion Show" to promote Thai culture. It was held at University College London and sponsored by Thai Airways, the Tourism Authority of Thailand, Oishi and Mentor. This event allowed me to apply art in the field of marketing, and to observe how the world would respond to our aims and initiatives. Even though it was extremely stressful and tiring at the time, it was a relief when everything went smoothly. The feedback we got was better than anticipated.

These past few years have not been easy, but they have been rewarding and I am proud of my achievements. I have learnt a multitude of invaluable skills along the way, honing my organisational and communication skills. Furthermore, I am able to utilise art and introduce something new to the contemporary art world.

This experience has shown me how difficult and painstaking it is to set up and maintain an organisation for a number of people. It is a lesson learnt beyond the classroom, a lesson that has introduced me to the real world.

Romchat Sangkavatana is a second-year graphic design student at Central Saint Martins, London.