Nha San Collective - Deconstructing memories
About
Nha San Collective gladly presents Deconstructing Memories, an open studio of three young photographers Nguyen Hoang Nam, Nguyen Hoang Giang and Nguyen Thuy Tien on 28.09.2013.
Three young artists from
Hanoi share the same interest about memories as well as existentialist
questions about it in human existence. Psychology defines memory as a
process of encrypting, storing and recovering information.
In
Nguyen Hoang Nam’s artwork, we could see a process of encrypting his
memories about a fragile “autonomous” – the poetic territory of flesh.
Just like an explorer, he slowly explores and stores memories of his
journey without a conscious but a sentimental and instinctive view
instead. This feeling makes us to ask ourselves: Where is this
territory? Is this really a place where we could set foot on? What has
happened here in the name of privacy and attachment? Sometimes, we could
also have a cold and mysterious feeling of a prohibited land, is it
trying to chase all the curiosities, which are approaching closer and
closer, away?
Nguyen Hoang Giang’s artwork seems to
include all the three stages of memoy. Also shares the interest about
family history, Giang collects old photos from his family album and
tries to find out the identities of the people in these photos. Then, he
chooses the photos of whom he couldn’t know the identities. At the same
time, he goes out and buys old family photos from many other sources.
Who are those people? What is the relationship between Giang and them?
If these photos were a symbol of memories then would his action of
buying these secretly turn memories into some kind of goods? What is the
remain of these people in the memories of living ones? When facing
death, what is the meaning of human memories after all?
Nguyen
Thuy Tien’s artwork is a process of recovering her private memories.
However, these memories are created by many other collective memories as
well. With an effort of collecting pieces of memories from many people,
she turns herself into an investigator and follows traces of women who
appeared in her father’s life. There are a little bit of bitterness and
sarcasm in her artwork, is she trying to finish the picture of her
family history by her high-leveled reason or her passive emotions? Is
there a chance that all of what she knows is just a vaguement hides
behind a persistent Oedipus complex?
Do Tuong Linh
This
event is a part of the open studio series of Nha San Collective, in
collaboration with Bill Nguyen and is sponsored by Cultural Development
and Exchange Fund (CDEF).