As a fitting analogy to the necessary negotations to changing situations that Asian artists and architects face, the exhibition is reinvented for each new venue that it travels to, around the world. Before Bangkok, it had travelled to the CAPC in Bordeaux, the Louisiana in Denmark, the P.S.1 in New York, the Hayward Gallery in London, and is now currently staged at the Kiasma in Helsinki. The version in Bangkok is never intended to be lavish full-scaled version as at the other venues, but only a sideshow of sorts, conceived more as a "city-intervention project".

Surprised first by the rumour that Singapore was indeed approached to host Cities on the Move, but declined, and then by the fact that recession-stalled Bangkok was going to be the first Asian city to stage it, I decided to see the much talked-about show in situ.

It proves to be elusive. Someone had told me that it starts at the beginning of October and will last for an entire month. We got to Bangkok, asked around, checked the newspapers and magazines, made some calls - no such event. It was not to be scheduled till a week after, we found out later from the editor of ART4d. In fact, he said, over the phone, he's going to Tadu Gallery to see if there's anything done to it for the show. His students from Silpakorn University were tasked to put up part of the show there. And no, he doesn't really know what's going on. So we met at Tadu located along an American-styled glitzy entertainment strip that we learnt had sprang up only in the last few month. After several wrong turns in a taxi, and some accosting of passers-by for directions, we came to Tadu to find the gallery still empty, with a bunch of Thai students equally perplexed about what was going to be put up there. The editor then decided to drive us to the Siam Society where the person who is main coordinator for the show "may" be there, because the day before, he had heard it from someone. Through relatively mild Bangkok traffic, we reached the very proper Siam Society to find the main coordinator, Ole Scheeren, harried by some locals like us, wanting information, or at least some decisions. He had worked on the Hayward Gallery version in collaboration with Rem Koolhaas. We asked about the show, he was evasive. He had no time to talk, but we made another appointment. Two days later we met at another Cities on the Move venue, the appropriately bohemian About Café. Before Scheeren arrived, we inquired Meo, the gallery director about what was going to be put up here, the gallery evidently being empty. No one knew. It all began to sound very mysterious. Much later, we were made to be believe that this is the 'Thai' way of working: unstructured, information passed through informal networks, from hearsay. It reflects the unplanned typology of the city, someone quipped.