Multimedia installation: photo and video of the twin artists in conversation with Vietnamese people in Germany. Dimensions varied.

Description

The Return is the latest art project of Lê Brothers, following their previous art project that begins by The Bridge (2010), a series of on-site performances from the Hiền Lương Bridge, which divided Vietnam into the two regions of the North and the South, to the North-South Korean border near Panmunjom, and the Berlin Wall that divided Germany for nearly half a century. "Separation and Reunion" became one of the major topics of the twin artists for more than a decade when arts became a channel to reveal the individual history, memories, and the past with many layers and unknown meanderings.

During the two residency months of March–April 2023 in Germany, Lê Brothers met and talked with many people in the Vietnamese expatriate community living in cities such as Halle, Berlin, Munich, Frankfurt, and Leipzig. They come from various historical periods and backgrounds: international students and labor exchange workers in the 70s and 80s, immigrant workers after Đổi Mới (Renovation period, 1990s), second-generation young people born and raised in Germany, and other Vietnamese students studying abroad in recent years. The Return is a multimedia installation built by hundreds of photo documents selected from more than 1,500 images, and a video of the twin artists in conversation with Vietnamese people in Germany. The photos printed in different dimensions and hung on large-scale nets in the gallery create a multi-layered visual installation. The pictures are both separated and overlapped on each other like layers of memory that time can hardly erase as a colorful collage panorama of the diaspora. The single conversation, image, and video record is a metaphor for leaving and returning in many twists and turns, feelings, desires, and ambiguities about the future where memories and reality blur into one.

Description is excepted from “The Return” Exhibition, 2024.