Unmapping (Over the night in Kwangju)
1997
2nd Kwangju Biennale
Kwangju, Korea

Highlighting issues surrounding migration and displacement, this project was developed to work with children in different contexts and locations. Linking lives from different places in the world, Navin Rawanchaikul visited a Thai friend who teaches refugee children in a suburb town near Atlanta in the U.S., travelling there to conduct workshops with the kids. Collaborator Kosit and his brother Waneak Juntaratip organised similar workshops with a suburb school on the Thai-Burmese border in a suburb of Chiang Mai. Both workshops linked their efforts with children in Kwangju, a city which has witnessed civil war and that also has a significant migrant population from China and elsewhere in Korea. The local children’s art workshops were conducted at different sites throughout the period of exhibition, while in the gallery was a large temporary cardboard house displaying all the children’s art works, videos, and other associated paraphernalia. Navin and his team of assistants slept in the ephemeral home over several nights.

Gallery