A filing cabinet on the internet by Rob Giampietro

Tourism in Thailand has a shared and unique history with the United States. While the country’s first formal relations date back to the first US-Thai Treaty in 1833, Thailand’s large tourism sector is due in part to the war in Vietnam from 1955 to 1975. While Thailand was never colonized by Europeans, it has constantly been subjected to and influenced by the major colonial powers of the world.

In The Tate Guide to Modern Art Terms, Simon Wilson and Jessica Lack define appropriation in an art context as “the taking over, into a work of art, of a real object or even an existing work of art.” The Museum of Modern Art further outlines appropriation in art as “the intentional borrowing, copying, and alteration of preexisting images and objects.”