Buckle up, Wonderers! Wonderfruit Festival is set to return after three long pandemic-filled years this December, 2022. Get your outfits ready for all the mesmerising activities blurring the intersections of food, art, architecture, music and human-nature interaction. With less than three months to go, we take a look at all the cool things to look forward to…
Wonderfruit has revealed its much-awaited 2022 programme lineup featuring sustainable architecture, spiritual artistic wonderings, sonic sounds and live performances, and we are so hyped. Indeed, after a two-year hiatus, Thailand’s festival is coming back stronger as one of the world’s biggest gatherings.
Set amongst the lush rolling tropical fiels of Siam Country Club, just 2 hours from Bangkok, the festival will transform into a unique setting of experiences filled with Ancient Forest, Meditative Soundscapes, Sonic Nature Immersion, ancient rituals in wellness, and reimagined spaces for both humans and nature with Architecture that feeds.
No matter whether you’re a returning Wonderer or a first timer, there are so many new ways to get in on the action. Here’s 10 things you probably didn’t know about the upcoming festival:
1. They’re building an Ancentral Forest spanning 10,000 square meters, home to 30,000 trees and 46 native species.
Together with the rewilding experts at SUGi and a local forest planting team from Baansuan Onsorn, Wonderfruit is designing a 10 rai (4 acre / 1.6 hectare) interactive sensory forest using the Miyawaki Method that will become home to an abundance of functional and medicinal species. Within this, they’ll be integrating Sonic Element’s sound installation (Wood) into the forest with listening spaces to layer different experience senses with nature. Family workshops engaging with various species of the forest trees e.g. making compost tea, tree message tagging, seed bomb making.
But, more importantly, the pocket forest will also be a place that encourages a deeper connection with the natural world through the intersection of cultural activities like art, design, music, architecture and performances. The forest will also become home to peaceful meditative areas, buildings and art installations that blend with the forest to allow immersion and deepening of the abiding connection between people and nature.
2. Experience self-sufficient and non-extractive architecture that feeds itself and the land.
A sustainable approach to Wonderfruit’s built environment: pavilions and spatial interventions take shape from the land to activate The Fields, which then feed life back into the land. Working with radical studio Ab Rogers Design on site landscapes and venues, and humanistic architect Boonserm Premthada on the farm village, Wonderfruit hopes to reimagine spaces for both human and nature through simple, honest materials and building techniques.
3. It’s one of the only festivals (if not the only) to start off with a land celebration and gratitude ceremony.
The festival will kick off with an inspired community gathering to celebrate the opening with gong bath performances, drum circle, and sacred dancing. Together, everyone will seek permission from the land while returning love and gratitude through the Wonderness Axis Mundi Ceremony. Axis mundi represents the rotating axis connecting our home earth with the celestial. This core links all particles; from trees, land, bodies, and minds. Wonderness will bring the rediscovery of our own axis mundi through a range of wellness and nature activities intended to restore balance to the body and spirit, aligning inside and outside as one.
4. Wonderfruit’s homebase, Neramit, will remain open 24 hours.
Neramit will be your home base at Wonderfruit, somewhere to recharge, reinvigorate, and reconnect, tucked under the trees in a lofty bamboo pavilion. Roll in at any hour, link up, make plans or discover hidden surprises. Neramit is the 24-hour center for everything: live bands and DJs, late nights or lazy mornings, and cocktails crafted from independent spirits by international souls, right in the middle of it all.
Designed to evoke the safe feeling of home by Boonserm Premthada, once under the corrugated triangular roof, shelter and refuge can be found served alongside potent cocktails to recharge for your next round in The Fields. Standing tall upon a set of wheels, a daily ritual will summon Wonderers to join together in moving the structure. The concept is meant to inspire connection with each other and the natural environment in how it interplays with changing light and wind directions.
5. Get ready to immerse yourself in over 20 varieties of rice at the Isaan Rice Tower.
There are more than 5,000 varieties of rice grown in Thailand and Wonderfruit is celebrating how a simple grain can feed so many ideas at the Isaan Rice Tower, which sits within the paddies that sustain it. Experience the subtle (and not so subtle) flavors, scents and textures of more than 20 native rice varieties across workshops, art installations, architecture and more.
Waste nothing and make pickled organic vegetables from rice washing water. Or try fermenting your own fragrant sato rice wine. Then, rediscover the side dish with Chefs Paisarn and Jib of Kaen Casual Fine Dining, who will teach you how to properly pair rice with different cuisines. Rice pairs with a lot more than just food, though. Steeped in tradition, the experience will be matched by acoustic Molam music served alongside potent rice-inspired libations at our Sato Bar by Por Sawat Up-hat, a master sato brewer from Khon Kaen joined by young and upcoming sato brewers.
6. Wonderfruit has decided to all-out ban single-use cups altogether—even the “environmentally friendly” ones.
After a lot of hard work, Wonderfruit decided to all-out ban single-use cups altogether—even the “environmentally friendly” ones. A radical move for a gathering of such a large size, but in 2019 they welcomed more than 20,000 Wonderers to The Fields and all of them brought or bought refillable cups. In that same year, Wonderfruit prevented 200,000 cups from landing in compost, and guests who picked up our sleekly-designed rice husk or steel cups—called Wondercups—got to take home a piece of The Fields to use all year, which is by all accounts like taking home a slice of paradise.
7. Welcoming a new permanent addition to The Fields: the Open Kitchen…
The Open Kitchen is an ode to women, mothers, aunts and grandmothers who, in Thai culture, are living scriptures and pillars of their communities, yet too often unrecognised. Artisanally and thoughtfully designed by Boonserm Premthada to minimise waste during the building process, the structure gives a second life to 30-year-old hardwood timber discarded from a nearby tobacco factory. Standing tall and open on all four sides to welcome visitors with open arms, once inside, you can meet aunts and grandmothers who will share with you their local culinary wisdom.
8. Thought humans were the only guests who needed a place to crash? Presenting the sustainable Insect Hotel!
Just like humans, insects need a place to crash when traveling from one destination to the next—and the Insect Hotel offers them just that. Designed by Boonserm Premthada and built from reclaimed wood found close to The Fields using traditional craftsmanship techniques, the Insect Hotel encourages insect pollination and hopes to become a nesting site for insects like the dragonfly, stingless bee, earwig, solitary bees and so on. By offering insects free accommodation near to The Fields, Wonderfruit hopes to prevent them from sneaking into Wonderfruit and bothering guests. Similar hotels have also been purpose-built for use as a natural insect repellent; instead of using pesticides with chemicals, a hotel keeps unwanted critters away from nearby crops. Come for a night, or stay for a season: all bugs are welcome at the Insect Hotel.
9. Wonderfruit’s iconic Solar Stage, made up of 2,173 wood parts, comes all the way from Burning Man.
Coming all the way from Burning Man, Wonderfruit’s iconic Solar Stage first debuted in The Fields in February of 2017 and has since become the home of the festival’s sunrise and sunset music programming. Designed to be rebuilt and reformatted each year, the structure is a champion of sustainable and innovative architecture. Its modular geometric building system further uses interlocking wood panels, omitting the need for screws and nails. The stage is a work by Gregg Fleishman, a Los Angeles-based architect, designer, artist and inventor whose work is primarily informed by geometry and functionality.
10. The Quarry: More regional musicians and DJs in the line-up
The Quarry is where beats meet nature: it’s Wonderfruit’s home for late-night revelry that’s hidden down a dark path in an overgrown disused quarry and framed by an exhilarating combination of lights, projections and structures. Home to Wonderfruit’s signature all night music program, hard and heavy grooves by a carefully considered lineup of mind-opening music-makers flood a forest floor while the evening melts away. This year, stumble into The Quarry which will host Craig Richards, DJ Masda, Krit Morton, Elaneh, Ben UFO, D. Tiffany, Dresden (Ivan Smagghe x Manfredas).
4-day Full Passes are sold out. Book your weekend and Sunday passes here. See you at The Fields.
FEATURED IMAGE: Performance with a big standing crowd in front of the Solar Stage, Wonderfruit Festival.