Artist：Rirkrit Tiravanija and Kamin Lertchaiprasert
Date：1998 – (ongoing project)
Location：Chiang Mai, Thailand
Media/Type：socially engaged rural contemporary art project
Commissioner："The land was initiated with anonymity and with out the concept of
ownership."
Researcher： Lewis Biggs
In 1998, Thai artist Rirkrit Tiravanija and Kamin Lertchaiprasert acquired a piece of land in a village Near Chiang Mai, Thailand. With no electricity or running water, it was a clean slate on which to create a dynamic community for an ever-changing cast of farmers, local students, and international artists.
One of Tiravanija’s most characteristic artistic acts is cooking for gallery goers. He has also built chrome-plated kitchen consoles and replica modernist homes from glass and steel, inviting people in to do whatever they please within the structure: sleep, read, rehearse with their band, listen to music, debate politics… or whatever. In one installation, Lertchaiprasert made 366 paper maché objects made from Thai newspapers on which were inscribed proverbs which drew on Buddhist and Daoist philosophies, offering a point of contemplation for problems facing contemporary Thai culture.
“The Land” is a self-sustaining environment that functions as an agricultural space growing rice. It is open to the neighboring community and also acts as a social space. It is a collaborative project which combines contemporary art interventions and traditional agricultural values. “The Land” is an ongoing project existing outside of conventional frameworks which bypasses the concepts of “property” or “ownership”, instead setting out to create a community and a model for a different kind of living. That “The Land” exists as open space and is accessible to all is an integral part of the project, ultimately the project is about “finding new ways of being together". |
