curatorial practices and small narratives: a case study of Chiang Mai Social Installation and its trajectory

Gridthiya Gaweewong

Abstract

This article focuses on the curatorial practices and the small narratives emerging from the Chiang Mai Social Installation (CMSI), a self-organized festival by Chiang Mai-based artists collective, started in 1992 and ended in 1998. The emergence of CMSI signaled their autonomy and emancipatory from the Thai-centric modern art tradition. This article, which is based on the study of festival archives, aims to trace how the artists collective performed their role as curator to organize the large-scale exhibitions in Chiang Mai to debunk Thailand’s conservative art scene, and transcend the national boundary to connect with the regional and global art scenes and communities.