SOMETHING IS COMING, SOMETHING IS GOING
In project “The Sap Still Runs”2019 - ongoing
Mixed media installation
Found jacket with printed world map , ash, iron hooks, belt of agricultural vehicles, cicadas ...
Dimension variable according to temperature, space, time ...
Something is Going, something is Coming subversively retraces the power relations of coloniality. The work reshapes a second-hand jacket that belongs to the artist’s father. Turned inside out to reveal a pristine map of the world printed on its inner layer, the jacket is filled with sand and ashes collected from the Central Highlands of Vietnam, where the artist grew up. When suspended from the ceiling of a gallery space, the object conjures a body bloated with soil. The exaggerated cartography on the jacket twists the idea of a world map—a symbol of absolute control and conquest, into a contortion of twisted continents and deformed countries. Throughout the duration of its exhibition, the dust occasionally trickles through the fabric and drops to the ground, recalling the mechanism of an irregular hour-glass, a whispering reminder of the present-absent passage of time.
excerpt from curatorial text by Nguyen Hoang Quyen
