| EXHIBITION |
LIVING ANOTHER FUTURE
Sammy Baloji, Liu Chuang, Naiza Khan, Khvay Samnang, Tuấn Andrew Nguyễn, Sara Ouhaddou, Dansoung Sungvornveshapan, Ubatsat
Featuring artists: Sammy Baloji (Brussels/Lubumbashi); Liu Chuang (Shanghai); Naiza Khan (Karachi/London); Khvay Samnang (Phnom Penh); Tuấn Andrew Nguyễn (Ho Chi Minh City); Sara Ouhaddou (Marrakech/Paris); Dansoung Sungvornveshapan (Bangkok); Ubatsat (Chiang Mai).
A group show organized by MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum in collaboration with in-tangible institute—Curated by Zoe Butt, with contributions by Ariana Chaivaranon and Kamonpan Tivawong (in-tangible Curatorial Fellow, sponsored by MAIIAM).
Exhibition period: 24 May 2024 - 3 June 2025
Opening reception: 24 May 2024, 6 PM onwards
At MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum, Chiang Mai
MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum proudly presents LIVING ANOTHER FUTURE, a group exhibition that explores how humans invest in particular narratives, in order to enable, sustain, or even control a desired future. The eight artists in this exhibition delve into histories of superstition, folklore, materialism, political doctrine, and colonial conceit that shapes the future today. Their works offer windows onto how such trusted guidance (or beliefs) are too often asserted at the expense of others, ultimately betraying land and people.
Embracing video, film, photography, sculpture, print-making, installation, and ceramic, this exhibition provides an interwoven set of stories unfolding from Thailand, Vietnam, the Congo, Cambodia, China, Morocco, and Pakistan.
Within this exhibition, we learn how insatiable believers in rhino horn “cures” have driven such endangered species to extinction. We awaken to the extractive colonial (now corporate) rape of communities and habitats for profit. We witness impoverished urban migrants dreaming of economic mobility forced to the fringes of society, and we learn of women seeking equality stifled by fundamentalist readings of their faith. This exhibition also reveals how man’s study of Nature and drive to technologically improve humanity threatens our very existence—for such science has sadly categorized Nature as a “resource,” thus annihilating the fragile interdependence of the animate and inanimate world.
LIVING ANOTHER FUTURE holds particular threads that weave its artwork together: firstly the role of storytelling (as ideological, folk, or canonical text) in the dissemination of cultural narratives, and secondly the perspective of the minority, be that of ethnic, social, or cultural disenfranchisement. Such weave seeks to share how artistic research can challenge our assumptions of the past, creating encounters of social resistance, and prompting the realization that perhaps we are not the stories we tell ourselves.
in-tangible institute was invited to curate an exhibition utilizing the MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum’s collection. They chose to not only augment aspects of this international collection by borrowing new works of complementary narrative, but also to use the research and realization of this exhibition as a professional development opportunity to train and mentor an emerging Thai curator, Kamonpan Tivawong, who is the first Curatorial Fellow at in-tangible institute, sponsored by MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum.
In conjunction with this year-long exhibition is a public program of film screenings—including the works of Nguyễn Trinh Thi (Hanoi), Taiki Sakpisit (Bangkok), Jen Liu (New York), and Timoteus Anggawan Kusno (Amsterdam/Yogyakarta), a performance by Zarina Muhammad (Singapore) alongside music, lectures, curatorial tours and artist talks. For further information, please contact info@maiiam.com / stand-by for updates through our FB and IG channels.
MAIIAM and in-tangible institute wish to thank the greater Chiang Mai community for providing generous reflections on particular artists and artworks within LIVING ANOTHER FUTURE (which are present within the exhibition). We also thank Rawiruj Suradin and Napisa Leelasuphapong for their design of a special digital interactive which showcases the significant historical research of artist Ubatsat.
About in-tangible institute
The following images are indicative only, they do not represent the full extent of this exhibition.
