Rirkrit Tiravanija’s work explores the social role of the artist, and that role’s ability to create interactive spaces for people to come together. Focusing less on the construction of discrete objects, he maintains a practice predicated on diffuse forms of installation that facilitate the activities like cooking, reading, and general collectivity. The particularly conceptual nature of his work is a central theme in this interview. While in art school, a teacher Tiravanija greatly admired told him to “stop making art” and this was something he took very seriously. It did not, obviously, end his artistic career, but it did initiate a focus in his practice on the ways in which art could function in broader, less materially centralized contexts. Thinking less about making things, and more about making spaces, and making them for people, he rose to international stardom through a series of event-like projects that radically questioned the appropriate behavior and norms of art spaces.