W(e)aves of Hope, An Attempt to Respond to Human Vulnerability at Bangkok Design Week 2026

In the middle of this year’s Bangkok Design Week, there is an installation that does not offer solutions. W(e)aves of Hope is not designed to fix the growing mental health crisis in Thailand. This work simply creates a space, a small, safe space to speak honestly, without names, without faces.

PlaylistX Studio from Jakarta and TJT Creative Lab from Bangkok built this installation from a simple question, how can design respond to human vulnerability? In trying to answer that question, they created a place where people can enter alone and speak about what they feel that day, similar to a small public phone booth.

Inside the booth, visitors encounter questions, “How do you feel today?” or “Who do you want to talk to right now?” These questions invite stories, about feelings that have not been spoken, memories that still linger, anxieties that have no place to go. The space is private and anonymous, anyone can speak without having to explain who they are.

What happens next is a process of translation. The voice that enters the booth is transformed into a digital visualization in real time. Each story, each emotion in the voice, is translated into visual waves, abstract patterns of light and color that move according to emotional intensity. These waves then become part of a growing woven design outside the booth. Throughout the festival, this weaving evolves from the accumulation of personal stories. The screen becomes an emotional graph of Bangkok that is never finished, always changing every time someone new enters and speaks.

PlaylistX Studio, based in Jakarta, is known for a human centered approach to experience design. They believe technology is a canvas for imagination, a way to create experiences that not only entertain but also inspire connection and spark change. TJT Creative Lab from Bangkok brings a similar philosophy. They call themselves a creative lab because they believe courage comes from experimentation, and from that experimentation meaningful work is found.

W(e)aves of Hope does not claim it can solve the mental health crisis. In the context of Bangkok Design Week, which raises questions about how design responds to human vulnerability, this installation offers something simpler, a space to speak, a space to be heard, a space where vulnerability does not have to be hidden.