Olivier Chow

I first met Olivier Chow earlier in 2026 over dinner at Brian Curtin’s place. He had already been in Bangkok for a little while and was building what would become Adult Material, his gallery and home in Chinatown.

In August 2026, I went to see him. Our conversation soon shifted into French as he took me upstairs to his living quarters. African furniture, books and artworks filled the rooms, some carried over from Foreign Agent, the gallery he previously ran in Lausanne.

But the gallery was only one of Olivier’s previous lives.

Before working in art full time, he spent many years with the International Committee of the Red Cross, in war zones and detention settings, working around torture and enforced disappearances. He worked with survivors and perpetrators, and told me that he is a survivor himself.

His academic research in art history also explored the aesthetics of cruelty. For Olivier, the connection was not accidental. Art offered another way of approaching experiences that had been very real to him, and of thinking about violence, memory and what can or cannot be represented.

After closing Foreign Agent, Olivier began looking for somewhere new. Bangkok stood out for its energy, affordability and openness towards queer people and queer art. When he found the shophouse in Chinatown, things fell into place. Being half Chinese, he told me, the neighbourhood also felt familiar.

Adult Material focuses principally on queer artists, but Olivier does not see it as a closed space. He wants art, design, craft and books to coexist, and the gallery to connect Bangkok with artists elsewhere while remaining rooted in its neighbourhood.

As a dark cloud passed over the shophouse, we took refuge inside and waited out the rain. When it eased, I suggested we make a few photographs in the street.

Olivier picked up a pink stool, pierced by a metal ring, and carried it outside. He crossed the street and sat down casually, facing his gallery, as if the object had always belonged there.

I made my last photograph there.

At the time of the shoot, Adult Material was preparing Intimate Elsewhere, scheduled to open on 10 September 2026 with five artists, including four from Southeast Asia.