A Reply to “All My Life”
—
Trương Quế Chi

With this letter to you, Weng Choy,* I hope to create a situation for a small private voice between us two to take place and resonate slowly. An attitude, a voice impossible to experience in direct contact, which itself has been scanty. Real presence in encounters is not easy. The connecting lines between a human and another human. I began this project with thoughts about my friends, and about their Faces, before and now. An effort to reach others—something you and I have discussed. All of these interfaces, videos, exchange, and correspondence is A Way to See Each Other. 

ALL MY LIFE by the late Bruce Baillie, is a 2 minute, 46 second video composed of a pan shot of a Californian roadside’s summer landscape, scored with an Ella Fitzgerald recording. A Single shot but All-encompassing. A body of indescribable sadness singing into infinity. A most distilled feeling about Life. From the ordinary. A lyrical moment, a reflection on the human condition. A moving image, not passing through, but flowing down.

All of the artists whose videos appear in this project are friends whom I have known for years. Despite having lived in different contexts, we belong to the same generation and are all in our 30s. When you are past 30, you have a different posture, it’s now impossible to be the same as when you were younger. Not a straight standing posture, but you learn how to stand in this world. The videos in this series didn’t come from a definite orientation. They came from a view into the artists, through their oeuvre and my fragmented knowledge about their lives. The works presented here are the turns of the flows. A looking back. A returning. An intersection. A rhythm moving downward. A leaning down. Closing, opening. A personal melody taking off. Remembering and forgetting. In our most fragile state, filming is a way to negotiate with the indefinite feeling of being. The jumps into nothingness. 

ALL MY LIFE ends with the shot tilting to the big blue sky. Watching it, I thought about the films of Ozu. His characters, whether happy or sad, often talk about the weather. In Floating Weeds, a character looks up and says, “The sky is so blue, but it’s sad.” And that is a funny scene. 

—translated by Hiếu
*Lee Weng Choy is the Festival Convenor

ĐỖ Văn Hoàng
Man’s Uniform (2020)
HD video
Duration: 4 minutes 1 second 
Credits: music, Twilight by Kotario Oshio, performed by Sungha Jung

Artist statement:

It’s been hard making films lately. A smartphone is almost the only choice for me. A film that records the images of the men at West Lake. 
What was the portrait mode aesthetics going to be like? I rode about West Lake on my scooter. Its wing mirror would later appear many times in my film. While recording I thought about how not to appear in it. Despite not appearing in the mirror or in the frame then, somehow I still felt as though I was in it.
I often filmed people in the back. The poet Pessoa wrote that when you looked at someone in the back, it was like looking at them sleep. The mirror were the backs of the filmed people, and it was me.
The mirror was me. 
During that time, I saw myself in all those ordinary people. The people in my film, I didn’t know what they were thinking as they were looking at the water, or if they were thinking of anything at all. I saw myself in all those men. An afternoon feeling. The moment of not thinking anything and not needing to think anything.
One of the film’s motifs, the sun appearing, is closely connected to the Lake. I have seen it for three years. It’s very beautiful. So much so that sometimes I feel like I don’t deserve it.

The film was edited based on a song which a beloved friend had sent me. It was made in March 2020, before the social distancing period in Hanoi. 

TRƯƠNG Công Tùng
Memory Of The Day No.2 (2019)
HD video
Duration: 2 minutes 22 seconds

How suddenly The still pool is disturbed! The passing wind Delights with the restless waters, The Insect Makes patterns, Annoying the tranquil waters. The reflections pass away, to be re-established again, The stately tree, The blue heavens, The swift bird, The heavy cloud, The tall house with many windows, Are there in the quiet pool.

The sun through the green leaves, The distant stars, through immense space, My own face, so close, Are there established. O pool, My tears disturb thy waters. Tell me, Which is the real?                              

—J.Krishnamurti, From Darkness to Light

Trương Công Tùng grew up in Dak Lak in the Central Highlands, Vietnam. With research interests that include science, cosmology and philosophy, Trương Công Tùng works with a range of media, including video, installation, painting and found objects. His practice contemplates on the cultural and geopolitical shifts of modernisation, as embodied in the morphing ecology, belief or mythology of a land. He is a member of Art Labor, a collective which works between visual art and social and life sciences to produce alternative non-formal knowledge through artistic and cultural activities in diverse public contexts and locales. Recent exhibitions include the Bangkok Biennale (2018), “Between Fragmentation and Wholeness” at Galerie Quynh in Ho Chi Minh City (2018), “A Beast, a God, and a Line” at Para Site, Hong Kong (2018) and projects at the Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw (2018), Dhaka Art Summit, Dhaka (2018), and the Carnegie International (57th edition), at Carnegie Museum of Art (2018). www.truongcongtung.com

Sales Enquiries

Quỳnh ĐÔNG
Late Autumn (2015)
HD video
Duration: 11 minutes 22 seconds 

Artist Statement: 

I thought about the transformation of South Korea. I thought about the past of South Korea in regard to Vietnam. I thought about Vietnam.

I thought about performance. I thought about sculpture. I thought about Asian stereotypes.

I thought about the soundtrack of Journey to the West. I thought about Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot”. I thought about Japanese maple trees in European gardens. I thought about reincarnation.

I thought about Kim Ki Duk’s movie Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring. I thought about ink paintings. I thought about the quiet films of Ozu. I thought about life and death. I thought about dry leaves. 

Late Autumn by Quỳnh Đông was made during the artist’s residency in MMCA Changdong in 2015. Journey to the West is a Chinese television series produced in 1986 by CCTV. 

Quỳnh Đông was born in Hai Phong, Vietnam, and is based in Bern, Switzerland. Her practice, which also includes performance and sculpture, often features hyper-real video works which deliberately challenge cultural stereotypes. Her work has been exhibited internationally, notably at the Kunsthalle Bern, Galerie Perrotin in Paris, Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam, and Galerie Bernhard Bischoff & Partner, Bern. She has performed works at the Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique Paris, the Museé cantonal des Beaux-Arts Lausanne in Switzerland, LISTE 17, the Young Art Fair in Basel, Switzerland, the Emily Harvey Foundation in New York, and the YAP`15, The Twinkle World, Exco 1F, Deagu, in South Korea. In 2016, she presented “Quỳnh by night”, her first solo exhibition in Hanoi at Nha San Collective. www.quynhdong.ch

Sales Enquiries

PHẠM Ngọc Lân
Recollect (2020)
HD video
Duration: 4 minutes

Artist Statement: Filmmaking was my excuse to be away from home. In early 2020, as I read through the news about the pandemic, my worry overcame my homesickness, and I felt compelled to just do something. I revisited my second home through the screen of my computer and my phone. In the end, this isn’t purely a home video meant for my family, but a video of memories and places.

—translated by Trần Đinh Việt Hoàng

Phạm Ngọc Lân was born and raised in Hanoi. He rarely left the city (both in reality and his imagination) until college. The artist graduated with a degree in urban planning and is a self-taught filmmaker. His works have been shown in both museums and prestigious film festivals. He became the first Vietnamese filmmaker to have his short films nominated for the Berlin International Film Festival Golden Bear award, in 2016 and 2019. www.phamngoclan.com

Sales Enquiries

Thảo Nguyên PHAN
Becoming Alluvium (2020)
HD video
Duration: 16 minutes 40 seconds

What would happen if we all left?
Does it matter?
It’s all over
This would not have happened, master …
If you had paid more attention, because the land.
The land?
Where is the land?
There is water everywhere,
The water has covered everything.
It’s all gone
Washed away

—excerpt from the Music Room by Satyajit Ray

Thảo Nguyên Phan is an artist based in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Trained as a painter, Phan is a multimedia artist whose practice encompasses video, painting and installation. Drawing from literature, philosophy and daily life, Phan reflects on ambiguous issues in social conventions and history. She started working in film when she began her MFA in Chicago. Select recent exhibitions include WIELS (Brussels, 2020), Rockbund Art Museum (Shanghai, 2019); Lyon Biennale (Lyon, 2019); Sharjah Biennial (Sharjah Art Foundation, 2019); Gemäldegalerie (Berlin, 2018); Dhaka Art Summit (2018); Para Site (Hong Kong, 2018). She was shortlisted for the 2019 Hugo Boss Asia Art Award. In addition to her work as a multimedia artist, she is co-founder of the collective Art Labor, which explores cross disciplinary practices and develops art projects that benefit the local community. Phan is a Rolex Protégée (2016–2017) and was mentored by internationally acclaimed, performance and video artist Joan Jonas. www.thaonguyenphan.com

Sales Enquiries

Back to Home Page