Bangkok · Independent · Public

Ideas for a more open civic life

Sam Yan Institute for Ideas and Civic Life is an independent platform in Bangkok bringing scholars, writers, artists, students, and practitioners together through fellowships, public lectures, research, cultural exchange, and civic learning.

What we do Upcoming events

From this year

Recent highlights

Interfaith Dialogue

A Southeast Asian response to the encyclical of Pope Leo XIV

Date
28 June 2026
Venue
Sam Yan Commons

Magnifica Humanitas: AI and Human Dignity from Southeast Asian Perspectives

Dr. Pat Pataranutaporn · Prof. Dr. Soraj Hongladarom · Phra Khru Methangkorn · Dr. Kamnuan Ungchusak

MIT Media Lab · Chulalongkorn · Wat Nyanavesakavan

In 2026 Pope Leo XIV issued “Magnifica Humanitas”, an encyclical letter on safeguarding the human person in the time of artificial intelligence. The Commons read it back from Southeast Asia — across Buddhist, Catholic, Muslim and Confucian traditions, alongside working AI researchers, in a room lined with books rather than a lecture hall.

Read from

  • Buddhist, Catholic, Muslim and Confucian traditions
  • Working AI researchers and engineers
  • Social research on vulnerable groups and justice
  • Youth voices from within the traditions

Public Lectures

Six panellists seated in a row at Sam Yan Commons, one reading from a notebook, another holding a microphone and a sheet of notes, with the event's title slide projected behind them.Six participants standing together after the dialogue, one holding a framed portrait of Pope Leo XIV, a bhikkhuni at the right holding a copy of Jack Goldstone's Revolutions.Pope Leo XIV, standing in white papal dress with a pectoral cross.The cover of the encyclical letter Magnifica Humanitas by Pope Leo XIV, subtitled On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence.

The Annual Lecture

The 1st Jane Jacobs & Pansit Torsuwan Annual Lecture

Date
6 June 2026
Venue
Chao Mae Thapthim Shrine Saphan Lueang

Many Sam Yans to Come: The Fight for Heritage and Power in the Age of Smart Cities

Prof. Davarian L. Baldwin

Smart Cities Research Lab, Trinity College, USA

Our flagship public event. Each June one thinker on cities, power and democracy is invited to address the questions this neighbourhood has been living through — and then to be argued with, in public, by a panel of respondents and an open floor.

Introduced by Netiwit Chotiphatphaisal

Respondents

  • Assoc. Prof. Dr. Pitch Pongsawat · Political Science, Chulalongkorn University
  • Assoc. Prof. Dr. Kanokrat Lertchoosakul · Political Science, Chulalongkorn University
  • Assoc. Prof. Dr. Boonlert Visetpricha · Sociology and Anthropology, Thammasat University
  • Dr. Rangsima Kulpattanapaisal · American Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  • Arthit Kowithwaranggul · Independent organizer and translator

About the Annual Lecture Support it

An audience seated under rows of red lanterns at Sam Yan Commons, facing a screen reading The 1st Jane Jacobs Pansit Torsuwan Annual Lecture.
01

Fellowships

We fund people, not events. Visiting fellows and young Thai researchers spend real time in Bangkok, work with communities, and put what they find in front of the public.

  • Sam Yan Residency Fellowship
  • Young Ideas Fellowship
Explore 02

Public Programs

Lectures, screenings, walks, and festivals — free to attend, translated, recorded, and published. The room is deliberately mixed: students, residents, monks, designers, journalists.

  • Public Lectures
  • Films and Ideas Festival
  • Heritage Walks
Explore 03

Research & Ideas

Applied research, documentary work, essays, and translation. Ideas are not only studied here — they are tested against a street, a shrine, a market, and a contested block.

  • Civic Design Lab
  • Sam Yan Studio
  • Publications & Translation
Explore

How it connects

One ecosystem, not ten projects

A fellow arrives, gives a lecture, joins the Lab or a heritage walk, makes work with the Studio, and presents it at the Festival. All of it happens through the Commons. Follow the cycle below.

One ecosystem, not ten projects The Institute is not a collection of separate initiatives. Each part feeds the others, and all of it happens through one shared place. A diagram placing Sam Yan Commons at the centre, with 8 connected programs around it. The same information is listed in text below. Sam Yan Commons ResidencyFellowship Public Lectures Civic Design Lab Heritage Walks Sam Yan Studio Films & IdeasFestival Sam Yan Press Civic Learning
Hover or tap a program to see how it connects.

How one fellowship becomes everything else

  1. 01 A fellow arrives through the Residency Fellowship
  2. 02 They give a public lecture
  3. 03 They join the Civic Design Lab or a Heritage Walk
  4. 04 The work is filmed and developed with Sam Yan Studio
  5. 05 It is presented at the Films and Ideas Festival
  6. 06 All of it happens through Sam Yan Commons

Ideas

People and thought

  • Sam Yan Residency Fellowship Scholars, writers, artists, designers, and practitioners spend time in Bangkok and work in public.
  • Public Lectures Contemporary debates made accessible well beyond universities and specialist institutions.

Civic Practice

The city as a workshop

  • Sam Yan Civic Design Lab An applied space for testing new forms of participation, public space, and urban design.
  • Sam Yan Heritage Walks The city as a classroom: architecture, religion, political history, memory, and everyday life.

Media & Storytelling

How the work travels

Community

The wider Sam Yan ecosystem

  • Sam Yan Press Independent publishing and translation. Stories and arguments travel further in Thai.
  • Civic Learning & Exchange Reading groups, student organizing, workshops, and exchange with partners across the region.

At the Commons

Upcoming

All events

Workshop3 Oct 202615:00–18:00

Action for Animals: start simple, make it count

Open workshop

You do not have to be perfect to help animals. Three hours on why people actually eat less meat, how to turn that into something measurable, and what to do on Monday morning. Everyone leaves with one small plan and a network to carry it.

Sam Yan CommonsThai

Reserve a place

Workshop series11 Oct 202613:00–16:00

Reclaiming Attention through Music

Five Sunday workshops, each closing with a Digging Hour

Listen for yourself instead of being fed. Five sessions on the political history of a genre — Thai songs for life, luk thung against the city's pop, reggae and anti-colonial sound systems, punk and DIY, and finally “world music”, which is not a genre at all but a bin Western labels invented in 1987 to file everything that was not in English. Each session ends with a Digging Hour: screens off, find the music yourself, load it onto a player, pass it round. Participants keep the player — no feed, no advertising, nothing suggesting what to hear next.

Sam Yan Commons11 & 25 Oct · 8 & 22 Nov · 13 Dec · 20 places · no musical background needed

Reserve a place

Open Call31 Oct 2026Deadline

Sam Yan Writing in Exile Prize for Burmese Writers

With Sam Yan Press

“Exile does not silence literature, it relocates it.” Open to writers from Myanmar, including those in exile and in diaspora communities. Short story, essay, or poetry.

Submissions open nowBurmese, English, Karen, Kachin, Chin, Mon, Shan, Karenni, Rakhine, Rohingya, or other languages of Myanmar

Full details and submission

Published

Recent work

Ideas & publications

Essay2 Jun 2026TH / EN

What a neighbourhood knows sample

Sam Yan Institute

On heritage work as a form of research, and on what is lost when a block is described only in the language of development.

Our work in numbers

Small institution, wide reach

See the full picture

48

Public lectures and talks

Free and open to the public

6,200+

Participants in person

Across lectures, walks, screenings, and studios

11

Visiting scholars and practitioners

Hosted in Bangkok

23

Universities represented

Thai and international

News

More

For funders & partners

One supported fellow produces a lecture, a film, a study, and a collaboration.

We are independent, small, and rooted in one neighbourhood — which is exactly what lets us convene people who would otherwise never share a room. If you fund public programs, research, translation, fellowships, or cultural exchange, there is a line here that matches how you work.

For funders & partners Partnership inquiry