Learning How to See: Challenging the Extractive View Through Shared Visual Practices at the Thai–Myanmar Border

ABSTRACT As an artist working with photography, I am aware of the power of images, especially when used to perpetuate extractive violence on local ecologies by aestheticizing destruction or normalising it, thus rendering entangled lifeways more legible and manageable for systems of exploitation. Situated along the Salween River, where it forms the border of Thailand, my research asks: how might artistic practises not only reflect but also challenge and offer alternatives to such visual rhetoric? In response, I have come to recognise the limitations of images in representing the intricate and layered relationships between the people living in the Salween borderlands and their environment. In this paper I outline a personal journey towards a more ethical visual practise. Over 3 years of fieldwork—grounded in building meaningful relationships with both place and people—I developed an artistic methodology that resists visual strategies that flatten or generalise. Instead, it embraces collaboration and a generative notion of site. Central to this approach is a series of traditionally dyed and woven textile works, created in partnership with an Indigenous artist, that explore the weaver's relationship to the flora, fauna, and geological features of the river. The paper offers new insights into how visual artists can confront the legacy of images in perpetuating power imbalances in Southeast Asia by adopting shared, rather than singular, forms of artistic expression to make local knowledge visible.