Chiang Mai Now!
Exhibition presenting Chiang Mai through visions of contemporary cultures
April 7th – June 19th, 2011
9th Floor, Bangkok Art and Culture Centre
Bangkok Art and Culture Centre will present an exhibition demonstrating a process of occurrences, activities, and experiments of contemporary culture that are happening currently in Chiang Mai. Curated by Angkrit Ajchariyasophon, the exhibition puts forward unique perspectives of 12 artists and contemporary cultural activists.
Departing from a question of where we are in the field of art, leads to a realm of contemporary cultures that propels Chiang Mai dynamic art and social scene.
A regional city equipped with distinct geography, diverse ethnic groups, intermingle cultures, Chiang Mai brews social complexities, giving rise to original and independent cultural organizations, artists, and cultural activists who choose the city as a base to live, research, investigate, and even experimenting in solving problems with unique approaches. It is evident in various attempts, whether it is creating alternative art spaces without support from authority, modifying the use of various media to communicate art to broader audiences, or constructing ground-works for alternative livings leading to social changes with forefront visions. All these are idiosyncratic rationalities that artists and cultural activists make use of, to challenge the condition and limitation presented by the rapidly changing society.
Placing Chiang Mai as a context, we are interested in what is happening and what is existing at the moment, not what is about to begin or what has already ended. With this reason, ‘now’ is the keyword signifying time as a stage of present, it is a dynamic word that is a motion of constant change. ‘Now’ is a stopped duration, and ‘Now’ with an exclamation mark (!) is to show imperative mood to point at a critical stage that our society is now facing.
Chiang Mai Now! does not aim to present the best cultural projects nor the most successful, rather it is to show processes and various attempts that generate cultural activities, which in turn reflect challenges, obstacles, and even defects in thinking resulting from the inequality in the social, educational, and economical backgrounds, and diverse political thinking in the various areas.
We need to stop for a moment, to learn, in order to collectively understand. Chiang Mai Now! , is not a project to judge or to assess value of any individuals or cultures. The exhibition merely provides a platform, for the diversity of thoughts presenting diverse minds, holding dialogue with the society at its centre, to reveal their existence and gaining recognition. It is an exhibition meant to point out the importance of ‘now’, as a juncture, as an understanding in shades of difference. And from here on, it might be a beginning of what could sustain us as a collective society.
Curator:
Angkrit Ajchariyasophon
Artists and Cultural Activists:
1. North Forest Studio
2. PunPun
3. ComPeung featuring Jai Arun Ravine
4. Malateh Media Studio
5. Lanna Bird and Nature Conservation Club
6. Yonyang featuring Torlarp Larpjaroensook
7. 31st Century Museum of Contemporary Spirit
8. Rabbithood Studio
9. the land foundation
10. ChiangMai Sunday Cycling Club
11. DOM-CU-MEN-TA-RY
12. Punya Movie Club
For More information please contact:
Public Relation Department
Bangkok Art and Culture Centre
939 Rama rd. Pathumwan Bangkok 10330
Tel: 02 214 6630-2, Fax 02 214 6639
email:
prbacc@hotmail.comwww.bacc.or.th