Hollow Territories

Hollow Territories presents an iron cartographic structure whose fragmented outline reveals a geography built as much from absence as from material form. The hollowed metal contours trace an incomplete, open-ended map—one that resists closure, boundary, and territorial certainty. This physical “hollow” directly references the stateless communities in places like Arunothai in Northern Thailand. While these individuals exist concretely within the geographic space, they remain “institutional voids” in legal definitions and national narratives, much like the negative spaces within these iron lines.

As light interacts with the steel framework, shifting shadows extend, distort, or dissolve the map’s shape, creating a second, unstable geography on the wall. These layered shadows evoke the fragile legal statuses and fluctuating borders that define many stateless experiences, where recognition is often conditional, and belonging is never guaranteed. In this work, the territory is neither fixed nor fully present; it emerges as a negotiation between light, material, and the viewer’s position. The map becomes an instrument of both visibility and erasure, while its shadow forms an ephemeral archive—documenting a presence that persists despite its precarity.