Long before becoming the capital of hip coffee places, Chiang Mai has long been a city of art. But even for locals, planning a gallery-hopping trip can be mind-boggling, with almost 50 galleries spread across the city and its environs. Although long overdue, it's great news for art lovers that Chiang Mai Art Conversation, or CAC, has just recently launched the Chiang Mai Art Map.
CAC is a non-profit initiative that was set up by a group of artists in 2013, with the aim of providing information and online data about art, with art maps and events. The print map is their latest step towards reaching the public. It's also available at various venues across Bangkok, such as the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, Cloud, Jim Thompson Art Centre, Thailand Art Archive and The Reading Room.
"At first we were doing it as an online archive," said Chiang Mai-based artist Sutthirat Supaparinya, who's a co-founder and member of Chiang Mai Art Conversation. "We archive art events, monitoring happenings in these galleries in order to create a bigger picture of the scene. When there's any interesting exhibitions or activities, we bring it into the conversation."
As an artist herself, Sutthirat gets to travel abroad a lot and noticed that in other countries, such as Japan, South Korea, US or those in Europe, they have networks that link different groups of galleries and artists together.
"In Chiang Mai, however, everything always remained the same, in terms of the development in our management of the art scene," said Sutthirat. "So, we started online platforms too, where we would find information on the city's art scene -- exhibitions and activities each month -- to then creating a bigger picture of the scene altogether. The map is our latest project in which we introduce all the art spaces and a map which people can really use as their guide."
With a simple and clear design, the map doesn't just provide readers with information regarding location, but also some information on each gallery.
"We separate the art spaces on an info page by the type of spaces, such as gallery, museum, collection, artist's studio, Artist-in-Residence and multipurpose spaces," explained Sutthirat. "In each space, we simply give basic info such as address, contact details and opening hours, plus the code that leads visitors to track their place on the map."
Since the Chiang Mai Social Installation from 1992 to 1997, she said the city hardly had an art fair that was as big. Each group was in their little world and there was this lack of connection. Thus, CAC became a necessary link.
"Most importantly, such a network benefits artists as it exposes them to differing gallery spaces as opposed to just letting them stick to their own circles."
Chiang Mai Art Map is available for free at BACC, Cloud, Jim Thomson Art Centre, Thailand Art Archive and The Reading Room.
