How to Pin Down Smoke: Conversation with the Editors

In an article for the Museum of Modern Art’s online platform post: notes on art in a global context, Afterall researchers Wing Chan, Arianna Mercado and David Morris speak to Carlos Quijon, Jr. about the publication How to Pin Down Smoke: ruangrupa since 2000. They discuss their editorial processes and considerations for the book, which ‘maps out the genealogy of the animated and complex ecosystem that ruangrupa has cultivated and which has shaped the trajectory of the group’s practice’. post is MoMA’s online resource devoted to art and the history of modernism and the contemporary in a global context. It is the public face of Contemporary and Modern Art Perspectives (C-MAP), a cross-departmental, internal research program at MoMA that fosters the multiyear study of art histories outside North America and Western Europe.

How to Pin Down Smoke was published in 2025 by Afterall in association with Asia Art Archive; the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College; documenta Institut; and the Faculty of Fine, Applied and Performing Arts, University of Gothenburg.

Read here.