Bamboo stakes, plastic ribbons, transparent plastic sheet, color photographs: 27 x 40 cm each (6 photographs total), video documentation: 00:32:18, color, sound. Installation dimensions variable.

Description

‘Our family used to live in the upper citadel. In 2007 we relocated to the resettlement area. Based on the floorplan of our old house, I wanted to draw up a mental image, to create a kind of visualization that can retrace its structure and interiors. In doing so, I also hope to recall the memories I had of our shared space.’

From fragile materials such as bamboo stakes, tape, and plastic ribbons, Nguyen Hoa originally planned to assemble a temporary and minimal structure based on his former family home. This structure – hollow and bare-framed – was supposed to be the outcome of a performance through which the artist would also share his private notes, recounting memories of his old house while also offering his perspective as a first-hand witness of the citadel’s relocation process. On 26 February 2022, Hoa conducted his performance next to Nhạc Hoa Viên cafe as part of the Edge of the Citadel project in Huế. After some 40 minutes, he was asked to stop by personnel from the Cultural Relic Management Board. Despite this challenge which inadvertently forced him to change his original plan, the artist continued to work in the early hours of the following day. The visual elements presented here at Nguyen Art Foundation, Ho Chi Minh City – the photographs and video documenting Hoá’s efforts to bring the work to life; the plastic canvas with fading ink tracing the floorplan of his old house; the criss-crossed bamboo stakes – are thus seen as remnants or ‘witnesses’ to a double relocation: one voluntary, the other forced.

Description from No more, not yet Exhibition Catalog, 2023.