ABOUT US

Mapping Asian Art Practices in Sweden (MAAPS) is an ongoing project initiated and run by four Stockholm-based curators with roots across Asia. MAAPS aims to bring together the work and stories of art practitioners based in Sweden who are situated in relation to what is often broadly framed as “Asia” and its diasporas.

The project is initiated from a context where Asian and diasporic practitioners often exist in fragmented and disconnected spaces within Sweden’s art field, with limited shared platforms for coming together. MAAPS responds to this by creating a space where these practices can be encountered in relation to one another.

We use Asia in its broad, messy, contested sense, as the word was never neutral to begin with. It was a term of convenience historically used in the Western context to label the vast regions to their east. In Sweden, the term “Asian” often carries narrow and racialised associations, most commonly connected to East and Southeast Asian identities and experiences. These histories and communities are central to MAAPS. At the same time, Asia is made up of many geographies and diasporic trajectories that cannot be contained within a single definition.

Rather than defining Asia or Asian art as a single unified identity, MAAPS stays with it as something shifting and relational. We seek to understand and navigate Asian art practices through conversations and encounters, not through fixed categories. Meaning is not something set in advance. 

This moves away from mapping as a way of fixing and ordering space. Mapping becomes a constellation; it treats every art practitioner as an equally important node, connecting them to form an ever-evolving contemporary landscape. Borders give way to connections, and what is usually treated as territory is allowed to shift and move. The map is living and growing – when a new voice joins, the whole shape changes. 

This process of mapping takes shape on the MAAPS website – a living archive and open platform where anyone can explore and engage, and where practitioners can also share and document their practices as they evolve.

MAAPS is initiated through a collaboration between Stockholm-based curators Yul Cho, Letian Lois Ding, Ruoxi Gao, and Ifra Shariq, in partnership with the curatorial association close-enough. It is also developed in connection with Ding’s graduation project within the International Master’s Programme in Curating Art at Stockholm University.

Visual identity designed by Nanna Li.

MAAPS exists within a wider ecosystem of initiatives asking similar questions from different positions in Sweden. We recognise and appreciate platforms such as:

3,5%: A counter-reaction to the white norm that prevails within contemporary art, by highlighting a different perspective, the concept breaks up the homogeneous perspective that still governs the art scene today.

Amber Eons: Artistic platform for choreography and experimental performing arts with artists of the Scandinavian East-/Southeast Asian diaspora in Malmö.

Black Archive Sweden: A contemporary archive on Afro-Swedish experiences.

Congee: A community of people in Sweden with East and Southeast Asian roots, meeting up for study circles, social gatherings, activities and other events.

Hej vännen: An ongoing visual and written project by Nanna Li exploring embodiment, memory, and becoming through fragments, images, and personal reflection.

Konst Detox: An association for/by BIPOC working in Sweden’s art field.

Mångkulturellt Centrum: A municipal foundation that works for a society where diversity is reflected in the national self-image and where migration is a natural part of the Swedish cultural heritage. 

Sino-Queer Sweden: A community for diasporic sinophone queer/feminists in Sweden. Sino-Queer aims to connect, support, and empower women and LGBTQ+ diasporas by building safe spaces and fostering dialogues within and across communities.

Southnord: An artist-run platform dedicated to the vast and varied artistic expressions, approaches and narratives the Afro-Nordic experience gives birth to.

MAAPS is also inspired by similar practices outside Sweden. We are appreciative of Asia Art Archive, Asia Contemporary Art Forum, Asian American Arts Alliance, Asian American Women Artists Association, Asian Film Archive, Connecting Asian Women Artists, and Northeast Asia Art Archive.