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Condition Report Project "The Breathing of Maps: Transformations of the Geo-Body"

Japan

The Japan Foundation Asia Center and The Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media [YCAM] will present "The Breathing of Maps," an exhibition developed in collaboration with Malaysia-based director and researcher Mark Teh as an co-curator, as part of the Condition Report Project.

The history of modernization in Asia is in part a history of confrontation with the West. As a symbolic product of the modernization process, maps reveal the dramatic changes in national sovereignty, culture, economics, and folkways that transpired in Asia under the influence of the West. Maps have functioned as a visual means of generating the concepts of space and community that distinguish modern society.
Thai historian Thongchai Winichakul posits that the maps produced by modern geographers have been instrumental in forming the spatial conceptions and community (i.e. national) consciousness of Thailand as a modern nation-state. He uses the term "geo-body" to describe this concept.
Treating the geo-bodies defined by maps as dynamic, not static entities, the exhibition examines the social transformations occurring in the layers of time that lie between maps as it explores the "living geo-bodies" shaped by the ongoing accumulation of human activity.

Accompanying the exhibition will be related artworks, performances, and lectures by artists and scholars from Southeast Asia and Japan based on their own unique research into the history, culture, politics, economics, folkways, and other social phenomena of their respective countries.

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Exhibition

Dates December 15, 2018 to March 3, 2019
From 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.
Closed Tuesdays and winter holiday season
Venue

Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media, Foyer and Studio B [YCAM] Access
7-7 Nakazonocho, Yamaguchi 753-0075 Googlemap

Organizers The Japan Foundation Asia Center, Yamaguchi City, Yamaguchi City Foundation for Cultural Promotion
In association with Yamaguchi City Board of Education
Co-developed with YCAM InterLab
Produced by Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media [YCAM]
Inquiries Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media [YCAM]
TEL:81-83-901-2222

Ms. Yasuko Furuichi
The Japan Foundation Asia Center
TEL: 81-3-5369-6140

Official Website Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media

Curators

Mark Teh (member of Five Arts Centre, Malaysia)
Idaka Kumiko (Curator, Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media, Japan)

Artists

Ho Rui An (Singapore)
Okui Lala (Malaysia)
chi too (Malaysia)
Irwan Ahmett + Tita Salina (Indonesia)
Carlos Celdran (Philippines)
Shiga Lieko + Shimizu Chinatsu + Nagasaki Yoshitomo (Japan)
Takayama Akira (Japan)
Yang02 (Japan)
Vandy Rattana (Cambodia)
center for remembering 3.11 (sendai mediatheque)

Researchers

Farish A. Noor (Historian/Philosopher, Singapore)
Janet Pillai (Sociologist, Malaysia)
Nishio Kaori (Playwright, Japan)
Kohara Masashi (Photographer/Curator, Japan)
Furuichi Yasuko (Exhibition Coordinator, The Japan Foundation Asia Center, Japan)

Events

Performances and Weekly Lectures, 2018¬–2019

December: 15 (Sat.),16 (Sun.), 22 (Sat.)
January: 5 (Sat.), 12 (Sat.), 19 (Sat.), 26 (Sat.)
February: 9 (Sat.), 23 (Sat.), 24 (Sun.)

*The final list of participants and events(dates) will be announced by YCAM.

This is the certified project of beyond 2020 program.