Christopher Kulendran Thomas at Museum of Contemporary Art / Chicago

Christopher Kulendran Thomas – New Eelam, 2018
in collaboration with Annika Kuhlmann
Part of I Was Raised on the Internet


23 June – 14 October, 2018


Museum of Contemporary Art
220 E Chicago Ave

Chicago, IL 60611






Christopher Kulendran Thomas, New Eelam, 2018
in collaboration with Annika Kuhlmann
Installation view: ‘I was raised on the internet’, MCA Chicago;
Courtesy the artist

Also featuring:
Artie Vierkant, Plant expression constructs 4, Soybean, MON89788 (Packaging Text, Leaf) (Exploit), 2015

Christopher Kulendran Thomas, New Eelam, 2018
in collaboration with Annika Kuhlmann
Installation view: ‘I was raised on the internet’, MCA Chicago;
Courtesy the artist 

Also featuring:
Artie Vierkant, Plant expression constructs 4, Soybean, MON89788 (Packaging Text, Leaf) (Exploit), 2015

Christopher Kulendran Thomas, NE_HYDRO_03, 2018
in collaboration with Annika Kuhlmann
featuring ‘Skin Deep II’ (2014) by Asela Gunasekara (purchased from
Art Space Sri Lanka)
Installation view: ‘I was raised on the internet’, MCA Chicago;
Courtesy the artist

Also featuring:
Artie Vierkant, Plant expression constructs 4, Soybean, MON89788 (Packaging Text, Leaf) (Exploit), 2015

Christopher Kulendran Thomas, NE_HYDRO_01, 2018
in collaboration with Annika Kuhlmann
featuring ‘Skin Deep I’ (2014) by Asela Gunasekara (purchased from
Art Space Sri Lanka)

Christopher Kulendran Thomas, NE_HYDRO_02, 2018
and Christopher Kulendran Thomas, NE_LB_09, 2017
both in collaboration with Annika Kuhlmann
Installation view: ‘I was raised on the internet’, MCA Chicago;
Courtesy the artist


Detail view: Christopher Kulendran Thomas, NE_HYDRO_01, 2018
in collaboration with Annika Kuhlmann 


Christopher Kulendran Thomas
New Eelam, 2018
in collaboration with Annika Kuhlmann 


Experience suite with videos, hydroponic home-farming systems, lightbox, website and ‘Skin Deep I’ (2014) & ‘Skin Deep II’ (2014) by Asela Gunasekara (both purchased from Art Space Sri Lanka). 


With the generous support of The Plant, Happy Leaf, Blu Dot, Exhibition Flooring and Schlep 
Courtesy of the artist. 


Commissioned by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago.


With thanks to DIS; Tensta konsthall, Stockholm; Institute for Modern Art, Brisbane; Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin 


This installation is a “concept space” for a real estate technology company being developed by artist Christopher Kulendran Thomas. New Eelam is a long-term artwork in the form of a startup, based on a distributed evolution of housing co-operatives. Drawing its name from the once self-governed – but now non-existent – homeland from which the artist’s Sri Lankan Tamil family originates, this venture imagines the future of citizenship in an era of technologically accelerated dislocation. Bringing together specialists across the fields of technology, real estate, finance, art, and architecture, the company is prototyping a new form of flexible global housing – based on collective access rather than individual ownership and featuring modular sustainable architecture such as the hydroponic systems presented here. For more information, visit: new-eelam.com 


A film commissioned by the MCA explores how a post-capitalist economic model could be grown out of the existing economic system rather than in opposition to it. 




Also featuring


Artie Vierkant, Plant expression constructs 4, Soybean, MON89788 (Packaging Text, Leaf) (Exploit), 2015
Sean Raspet, Preferred Embodiment: A Composition of Matter Consisting of the Difference Between Two Compositions of Matter, 2012-2017