More and more artists today refuse to display their creativity exclusively within and upon the pristine walls of the gallery space and rather question more actively the role they play in society. In turning towards collaborative and transdisciplinary practices, artists have been defining new modes of bypassing formalist credos and interacting with the social realities of daily life. Rirkrit Tiravanija, who has been a key figure of these evolutions, revealed his ideas concerning a large scale project taking place on a plot of land that he purchased in the village of Sanpatong, near Chiang Mai, Thailand. Begun in 1998 The Land is a laboratory for self sustainable development but also a site where a new model for living is being tested out.

Tiravanija's initiation of this project resists the normative and prescriptive aspects inherent to projects such as the Weißenhof Siedlung, proposed in 1927 by Mies Van der Rohe and other leading architects of the Modern Movement. Being not rooted in intransigent beliefs on how others should live The Land is in contrast a self-imposed utopia which stands as a pertinent illustration of what a utopian project can be once grand theories have been moved aside: a feasible, practical, but even more importantly, subjective Utopia.

Hans Ulrich Obrist, 2005 (translation: Tim Sharp)