Cartographies of Relation: Notes from the Making of the Thailand Biennaleby Adjunct Curator, Asia Pacific, at Tate ModernHera Chan

Doloh Chetae, Map Painting of Pattani Bay Depicting Natural Resource Areas. Courtesy of the artist

As a member of the Thailand Biennale 2025 curatorial team, our fellow Hera shares how the making of ‘Eternal [Kalpa]’ unfolds through Phuket’s shifting languages, local histories, and a collaborative spirit that shapes the journey.

‘The ethical foundations of collaboration begins from this same premise: entering into relation of shifting sands. To work across fields – between art and environmentalism, social practice and oral knowledge, technology and minerals – requires an awareness of asymmetry, of the uneven distributions of access, time, and legitimacy that shape every exchange. Collaboration becomes a form of research citation into how knowledge moves and who has the power to name. When practiced with rigor, collaboration resists the extractive logic that often defines art’s engagement with the world. It reimagines resource not as something to be used or possessed, but as a series of shared relation – one that depends on reciprocity and hospitality.’

Thailand Biennale: Eternal [Kalpa] will be free and open to the public from 29 November 2025 to 30 April 2026.

Click here to read Hera’s full article for Something Curated, published on 25 November 2025.