The Semathai Marionette Arts for Social Foundation, established by local artists, focuses on using marionettes for educational and community development purposes in Thailand. It organizes various festivals and events to promote traditional and contemporary puppetry, which have attracted international participation and fostered collaboration among youth puppet troupes. The foundation aims to strengthen local arts and community ties, with initiatives like the Puppet Village concept enhancing community development through cultural exchange and support.

2. Semathai Marionette Arts For Social Foundation was
founded by a group of local artists that came together
with the aim of creating marionettes to use as learning
media for Thai society, and for community development.

4. PUPPETS DESIGN
CONTEMPORARY AND LOCAL
STYLE

5. PUPPETS DESIGN CONTEMPORARY AND LOCAL STYLE

6. Thai society is an agricultural one. Most Thai people live in rural communities, with
some living in city districts, specifically in main regional cities and the nation’s capital.
Rural communities have very large families living together with strong filial ties.
Large extended families in city districts are rare, and families there tend to be small.

7. The development of art ought to take in a wide scope and give importance to arts
in both urban and rural areas, therefore both traditional and modern puppetry
should be given equal importance.
Traditional puppet Local puppet

8. Semathai Marionette Arts For Social Foundation assembled youth puppet troupes
across the country to form The Youth Puppet Community of Thailand, which features
every form of Thai puppetry, and provides a way for them to share knowledge and work
together.

21. HARMONY PUPPET FESTIVAL
The Harmony Puppet Festival arose from a desire
to establish relationships among The Youth
Puppet Community of Thailand. It was held in the
local setting of Amphawa in Samut Songkram
Province in order to provide youth puppet troupes
an opportunity to learn about and experience the
community, and meet puppet experts from
Sweden who came to share their knowledge.

25. The Youth Puppet Festival piqued the interests of international puppet troupes in
Egypt, Malaysia, Iran, and Peru, who travelled to take part in the performances, and
held workshops with The Youth Puppet Community. They also had the opportunity
to learn about the community in the form of a study tour which the foreign
puppeteers were quite touched by.

26. The Semathai Marionette Foundation brought The World Puppet Carnival
to Bangkok with the intention of providing a way for Thai people to get to
know puppetry on an international level. This festival included every Thai
puppet troupe in Thailand, along with The Youth Puppet Community of
Thailand, more than 60 Thai troupes all together, as well as 150 foreign
puppet troupes from 80 countries around the world. It was dubbed
"Harmony World Puppet".

30. The festival in Amphawa has become an annual event in Samut Songkram
Province, where The Youth Puppet Community of Thailand can meet to learn
about a wide variety of puppets, and create collaborative works together.

32. The Semathai Marionette Foundation began expanding the results of The Youth
Puppet Festival into other provinces across the country. The Youth Shadow Puppet
Festival gathered the existing youth shadow puppet troupes in Thailand to hold an
event in Rayong Province.

33. The aim of holding youth puppet festivals is the
wish to strengthen local arts. The Youth
Marionette Network was invited to hold
performances at The Phuket Thai Hua Museum,
in Phuket, where antique local marionettes are
preserved.

34. The concept behind holding Harmony Puppet Festivals has spread to become one
of the local festivals held on Thalang Road, in Phuket, in the form of street
puppetry. It includes foreign puppeteers who travel to take part in the event.

37. Holding youth puppet festivals has led to enhancing puppetry's ability to develop the
community. The Youth Hand Puppet Festival, which was held in the province of Maha-
Sarakham, was able to supplement support for the beginning of construction of a
regular local puppet theatre, which came about from having participants in the
community who met with success.

38. The Youth Puppet Festival desires to build good relationships with youth
puppet troupes from other countries, in order to exchange knowledge and
lend a hand in creating collaborative work between youth puppeteers in
ASEAN. Earlier this year youth puppet troupes from Myanmar and Vietnam
came to collaborate on a stage-work with us.

40. After The Harmony World Puppet Carnival the idea
came to spread knowledge, understanding, and
access to puppetry to other provinces. The festival
in Kanchanaburi is being mounted along the lines
of a "Puppet Village" in order so that puppeteers
from approximately 40 different countries come to
perform and create knowledge of international
puppetry for locals.

53. Developing stability for The Youth Puppet Community of Thailand led to the
creation of the concept of The Puppet Village, where puppetry paves the way for
community development, and the community lends a hand with the preservation
and support of the puppets paired with them, with events that enhance both the
areas of local tourism and community development.