LIVING ANOTHER FUTURE

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)

Exhibiting 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); and Ubatsat (Chiang Mai).

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LIVING ANOTHER FUTURE 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.

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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. A full color exhibition catalog also accompanies this exhibition (book launch in early 2025), with newly commissioned texts by Dr Graiwoot Chulphongsathorn and Minh Trang Nguyen. 

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MAIIAM and in-tangible institute wish to thank our Chiang Mai community for their providing generous reflections on particular artists and artworks within LIVING ANOTHER FUTURE (these reflections 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.

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About the curators

Zoe Butt is a curator, writer and educator, nurturing critically thinking and historically conscious artistic communities, fostering dialogue among cultures of the globalizing souths. Possessing an extensive exhibition, publishing and public-speaking history globally, she founded ‘in-tangible institute’ in 2022, seeking a robust ecology for locally-responsive curatorial talent in Southeast Asia. Zoe holds a PhD by Published Works, Center for Research and Education in Art and Media, University of Westminster, London and is currently Lead Advisor (Southeast Asia and Oceania), Kadist Art Foundation. Previously she was Artistic Director, Factory Contemporary Arts Centre, Ho Chi Minh City (2017-2021), Executive Director, Sàn Art, Ho Chi Minh City (2009–2016), Director, International Programs, Long March Project, Beijing (2007–2009), Assistant Curator, Contemporary Asian Art, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane (2001–2007). She has been published by Hatje Cantz, JRP-Ringier, Routledge, Sternberg Press, among others. Zoe lives between Chiang Mai, Ho Chi Minh City, and Sydney.

Ariana Chaivaranon is a Thai-born artist and curator. For the past decade, Ariana has worked at preeminent art institutions (including the U.S. National Gallery of Art, UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, The Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, Harvard Art Museums, and The Frick Collection). Ariana’s recent writing is published by Rowman & Littlefield, Art & Market, MoMA Post, Southeast of Now, and Di’van Journal. Ariana’s artwork has been exhibited at Cartel Artspace (Bangkok), Art Jakarta, H&R Block Artspace (Kansas City), Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana (Venice), and Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts (Cambridge), among others. Ariana was a participant in the Independent Curators International Curatorial Intensive (2024), awardee of the ASEAN-China Young Leaders Scholarship (2022), Asia Art Archive Leadership Camp (2020-2021), and Board member of Plug Gallery. Ariana holds a B.A. from Harvard University in Art, Film, and Visual Studies and Art History, and a Master of Management Science in Global Affairs from Tsinghua University, Schwarzman College.

Kamonpan Tivawong is a photographer with a growing interest in curating and writing. In 2023, in-tangible institute awarded her a Curatorial Fellowship, sponsored by MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum. Kamonpan holds a bachelor’s degree in Photographic Arts from the Faculty of Fine Arts, Chiang Mai University. She is interested in relationships between Thai people and their Buddhist beliefs, particularly for how this faith is inflected with animistic rituals and practices that continues to shape Thai society today. She co-curated A History of…, a solo show by Pietro Lo Casto’, Chiang Mai (2023). As an artist, Her exhibitions include Chemicals 101, Bangkok (2018), Southeast X Southeast group exhibition, Daytona State College, USA (2018).

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About the artists

Sammy Baloji explores the memory and history of the Democratic Republic of Congo, researching the cultural, architectural and industrial heritage of the Katanga region, as well as questioning the impact of Belgian colonization. His use of photographic archives in his multimedia practice allows him to manipulate time and space, comparing ancient and colonial narratives with contemporary economic imperialism. His critical view of contemporary societies is a warning about how cultural clichés continue to shape collective memories and thus allow social and political power games to continue to dictate human behavior. Since 2018, Sammy Baloji has been teaching at the Sommerakademie in Salzburg.  In 2008, he co-founded the Rencontres Picha/Biennale de Lubumbashi. Recent notable exhibitions include Unextractable: Sammy Baloji invites, Kunsthalle Mainz, Germany, 2024, 35th Bienal de São Paulo, 2023, the Architecture Biennale of Venice, 2023, 15th Sharjah Biennial, 2023. Sammy Baloji (b. 1978 in Lubumbashi, DR Congo) lives and works between Lubumbashi and Brussels. 

Liu Chuang  works primarily with film, sculpture, the readymade and installation. His works often integrate long-term histories and ecological arcs of imagination, tracing the social, cultural and economic transformations of contemporary China. Weaving narratives that connect the micro and macro, past and present, fiction and reality, Liu Chuang explores how vast and complex changes in nature, tradition, demographics, cutting-edge technology, and socio-economic systems affect individuals and their engagements with the world at large. Recent notable exhibitions include Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale, 2024, Shanshui: Echoes and Signals, M+, Hong Kong, 2024, Taipei Biennial, 2021, 11th Seoul Mediacity Biennale, 2021. Liu Chuang (b. 1979 in Hubei, China) currently lives and works in Shanghai.

Naiza Khan’s multi-disciplinary practice is built on a process of critical research, documentation and mapping-based exploration. She works with drawing, sculpture, painting, archival material and film to bring together ideas of land, body and memory. Her practice raises questions about old and new infrastructures, colonial history and collective memory. Often engaging with museum collections, Khan’s work explores the circulation of objects in the histories of migration, trade and faith across the Indian Ocean. Recent notable exhibitions include 14th Gwangju Biennale, 2023, 15th Sharjah Biennial, 2023, Embodied Change: South Asian Art Across Time, Seattle Asian Art Museum, USA, 2022, Manora Field Notes (solo), Pakistan Pavilion, 58th Venice Biennale, 2019. Naiza Khan (b. 1968, Bahawalpur, Pakistan) currently lives and works in London and Karachi.

Khvay Samnang poetically engages Cambodian memory via recall of traditional cultural rituals and their various symbolic gestures. Focusing on the humanitarian and ecological impact of colonialism and globalization, Samnang’s largely performative and sculptural practice investigates local specificities of social structures and their impact on the lived environment. Traveling is a crucial tool for his practice, often engaging personally with rural communities. Samnang co-founded Stiev Selapak, an art collective dedicated to reappraising Cambodian history, exploring continuities in visual practices disrupted by civil war and the Khmer Rouge regime. He co-founded Sa Sa Art Projects in 2010, a space for experimental residencies, knowledge-sharing, and community-based programs in Phnom Penh. Recent notable exhibitions include Spirits of Maritime Crossing, collateral event of Venice Biennale 2024, Love the Land, Tomio Koyama Gallery, Japan, 2022, Dancing the Land, ifa, Stuttgart, Germany, 2022, Helsinki Biennial, 2021. Khvay Samnang (b. 1982 in Svay Rieng, Cambodia) currently lives and works in Phnom Penh.

Tuấn Andrew Nguyễn’s collaborative practice employs predominantly film and sculpture in exploring memory as a form of resistance and empowerment, emphasizing the power of storytelling as a means for healing, empathy and solidarity. Fueled by research and a commitment to communities that have faced traumas caused by colonialism, war, and displacement, he approaches memory as beyond the restrictions of time (past, present, future), giving way to thinking about ghosts, specters, hauntings as political tools. Tuấn co-founded The Propeller Group in 2006, a platform for collectivity that situates itself between an art collective and an advertising company. In 2007, he co-founded Sàn Art in Ho Chi Minh City, an artist-driven initiative dedicated to experimental ideas of contemporary art. Recent notable exhibitions include Radiant Remembrance (solo), New Museum, New York, 2023, 12th Berlin Biennale, 2022, Manifesta 13, Marseille, 2020. In 2023, Tuấn was awarded the Joan Miró prize. Tuấn Andrew Nguyễn (b. 1976, Sai Gon), currently lives and works in Ho Chi Minh City.

Sara Ouhaddou’s art explores the power and violence of the written historical record, compelled by her upbringing as an indigenous Amizigh, where orality transmits memory above all. Working with a myriad craft community, Sara’s investigative research embraces anthropological and archaeological methodologies in an attempt to thwart their systemic (mis)reading of cultures they seek to control. Moving between textile, drawing, printmaking, sculpture and installation, Sara’s practice illuminates the synergy between disparate communities, recalling cosmic, mythic and economic narratives of migration, transformation and resilience. Recent notable exhibitions include Display (solo), Museum of African Contemporary Art Al Maaden, Marrakech, 2024, Chaleur Humaine, Frac Grand Large, Dunkerque, 2023, Moroccan Trilogy 1950-2020, Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid, 2021, Manifesta 13, Marseille, 2020. Sara Ouhaddou (b. 1986 in Draguignan, France) currently lives and works in Paris and Marrakech.

Dansoung Sungvorashapan’s photographic images grapple with the fragility of humanity in its greed to control the evolution of its people and habitat. Focusing on the genre of portraiture and landscape in composition, Dansoung’s pictures are at times staged or natural observations of a particular person, site or context. Compelled by those socially or culturally disenfranchised or youthfully disillusioned, his practice reflects the contemporary dilemmas of technological obsession and resource extraction, reflecting the resilience of those who suffer displacement or disability as a consequence of their (misplaced) dreams or social values. In 2004, Dansoung created a classroom project for children, with associated textbook, encouraging environmental awareness. Operating out of his studio, he founded Foto Dokkma Gallery in 2019, a space showcasing his personal works and discussion for those interested in photography. Recent notable exhibitions include The 21st Silpa Bhirasri Creativity Grants, Art Centre Silpakorn University, Bangkok, 2023, Blowing Up The Tale of Ageing Society, Bangkok Art & Culture Centre, Bangkok, 2023, ERRATA, MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum, Chiang Mai, 2021. Dansoung Sungvorashapan (b. 1958, in Nakornsrithammarat, Thailand), currently lives and works in Bangkok.

Ubatsat is an artist-activist compelled to share the stories of those in crisis. Often working in collaboration with interdisciplinary expertise—such as farmers, craftsmen, musicians, or chefs—his art seeks to give conscience to the injustice and abstraction of History, often speaking for those helpless or seeking refuge. Embracing painting, sculpture, printmaking and site-specific installations, Ubatsat mines the tangible and intangible archives of the past in order to comparatively counter hegemonic assumptions. Recent notable exhibitions include Train Song (solo), VS Gallery, Bangkok, 2024, No Distance to Khon Pi Luang (solo), Warin Lab Contemporary, Bangkok, 2023, Thailand Biennial, Chiang Rai, 2023, Yayasan Biennale Yogyakarta 17, 2023, Bangkok Art Biennale, 2020. Ubatsat (b. 1980 in Bangkok, Thailand) currently lives and works in Chiang Mai.