» [mothermap]

In his series My Land (2017 – ongoing), Ha Ninh Pham grants himself absolute control to architect his own fantasy universe, contesting the idea of territory making and historical contingency. Drawing from the studies of cartography, Ha Ninh’s works disregard any known civilization and replace such with alien complexes and hyper-texturized structures. The work [mothermap] provides a total view of this imagined universe. One side of the map is numbered 1 to 8, and the other marked A to H. In actuality this data doesn’t appear visually in the work; although part of the rule of the game is revealed, we simply have to trust our eyes and ability to connect the dots to figure out our navigation. We are also informed that individual landmarks appearing in [mothermap] may carry other universes hidden deep inside. Thus to canvas a map in Ha Ninh’s world becomes an act of looking with depth, instead of just looking at the surface.