This is a little map I did for Emerald Cities: Arts of Siam and Burma, 1775-1950, a catalogue of a forthcoming exhibition at the Asian Art Museum. The museum’s website says:
Thailand and Burma, neighboring countries that are approximately the same size in area and population, have many cultural features in common (Theravada Buddhism above all), but have traditionally been adversaries.
This exhibition of decorative and religious arts explores Thailand and Burma’s shared aesthetic despite their contrasting histories.
I do my maps in Illustrator. In this instance I used kuler to help me select colors. Originally both the historical map at left — which shows the bites England took out of Burma before consuming it whole — and the context map at right used the darker color scheme of the left map. The curator thought that was confusing because of the color key at left, so I just desaturated the colors in the map at right.
I could have inset one of the maps but I preferred to keep them separate.
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