Mixed medium installation of wood,gravel, tree sap, ash, hair silk, time, space, …

Variable dimensions depending on time and space.

Description

These discarded memories of life in Central Highlands are then reborn as artistic material, as Tùng interweaves and recontextualizes them in the exhibition space–a somewhat futile attempt to retain them before their eventual dissipation. The installation The state of absence... Euphoria in passing... #1 (2023 - ongoing) stems from the image of a silkworm cocoonage, which in turn symbolizes the silk industry–one of the many governmental projects to alleviate poverty in Central Highlands. Made from industrial wood, the cocoonage is shaped like a chessboard; each of its squares used to house a single silkworm cocoon. When Công Tùng repurposed these abandoned cocoonages, he randomly placed within the squares a pebble that he collected from the jungle or the river. The ivory, ochre-washed hues of the pebbles scatteredly weave luminous constellations across the time-mottled, earthy brown canvas of the cocoonage, as they allude to the memories about the not-yet-hatched silkworms. Ironically, their untimely death serves to feed the silkworm farmers’ unending desire to escape poverty and transform their lives. The silkworms’ absence is a silent testimony to nature in the land that constantly bears the brunt for the wishes of mankind.

Description is excerpted from the essay by Dương Mạnh Hùng from "The Disoriented Garden…A Breath of Dream" Exhibition Booklet, 2023, p. 35.