Thailand | The Breathing of Maps

The Japan Foundation Asia Center will present "The Breathing of Maps" in Thailand in 2020 with a lecture/performances programme at MAIIAM in Chiang Mai on 25-30 January and a symposium in Bangkok on 1st February.

The history of modernization in Asia is in part a history of confrontation with the West. As a symbolic product of the modernization process, maps reveal the dramatic changes in national sovereignty, culture, economics, and folkways that transpired in Asia under the influence of the West. Maps have functioned as a visual means of generating the concepts of space and community that distinguish modern society.

Thai historian Thongchai Winichakul posits that the maps produced by modern geographers have been instrumental in forming the spatial conceptions and community (i.e. national) consciousness of Thailand as a modern nation-state. He uses the term "geo-body" to describe this concept.

Treating the geo-bodies defined by maps as dynamic, not static entities, the exhibition examines the social transformations occurring in the layers of time that lie between maps as it explores the "living geo-bodies" shaped by the ongoing accumulation of human activity.

Related artworks, performances, and lectures by artists and scholars from Southeast Asia and Japan are presented based on their own unique research into the history, culture, politics, economics, folkways, and other social phenomena of their respective countries.

[Chiang Mai]　Lecture/Lecture Performances
January 25 (Sat.) – 30 (Thu.), 2020
MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum
Organized by: The Japan Foundation Asia Center, MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum
Supported by: Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media [YCAM]

[Bangkok]　Symposium
February 1 (Sat.), 2020
Ayara Hall, Jim Thomson House
Organized by: The Japan Foundation Asia Center, Jim Thompson Art Center

The program is a reconstruction of the exhibition entitled "The Breathing of Maps" held at the Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media [YCAM] in December 2018- March 2019 and Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre in July 2019. https://jfac.jp/…/culture/events/e-asia2019-the-breathing…/…