Ilza Burchett – About ‘Black Fog’ exhibition at Nha San Collective

(Vietnamese version available – Đã có bản dịch tiếng Việt)

” One morning, as Greg Samsa was waking up from his anxious dreams, he discovered that in bed he had been changed into a monstrous verminous bug”.

From “The Metamorphosis” by Franz Kafka

Presented by Nha San Collective is an installation style exhibition consisting of a poem, a poetry film, and two installations.

The exhibition is titled ‘Black Fog’, taking its name from the title of the poem of poet Phương Lan with pseudonym eL.

For the duration of the exhibition these four works inhabit not only the same physical space, but the same emotional and psychological dimension.

As eL says :”I and my friends — who sharing with my view through this poem and decide to join in — consider this project not only a combination of poetry, experimental films and installations, but also a place for all of us to experience and sink into, by opening as much as possible your senses at the same time to perceive it”. [1]

eL’s ‘Black Fog’ poem is inscribed with white chalk on the central wall of the blackened for the purpose exhibition space, in which all the works on show revolve around its theme of existential angst:

…”Nowhere to run
I land on the edge of the abyss
Strain to elevate my child”… [2]

The audio-visual representation of eL’s poem takes the form of a 17 minute film by Dino Trung, also titled ‘Black Fog’, which adds its substantive length to the viewer’s immersion in the exhibition’s dark mood.

The film is carefully constructed and well edited. It effectively employs the language of visual symbolism to deliver the content of the poem in images and sounds and — as an audio-visual-moving-image-medium in itself — contributes significantly to conveying the intended sense of existential frustration, anxiety, victimhood, pain, loss, lamentation and the general gloom and doom of its subject.

The projection of this film as a successful embodiment of the poem carries enough of the gathered postmodernist feel in its subject and the formal strength of its medium, to stand as a video installation of its own.

The two additional installations — though thematically and emotionally driven by the ‘Black Fog’ poem — retain some independent presence in the overall presentation and assert the individuality of their artistic expressions. However literal in their symbolism, there is more ambiguity in them to make one wonder about the emotional connection they may make, if presented individually in another context.

The installation ‘Silent, Don’t Make Them Flap Their Wings” by Vo Tran Chau takes the form of a bug nest-congregation of toy-like insects of all sorts, some suspended on threads in various mating clusters. It is hung under the ceiling and it is as effective as it could be in its symbolism of a malignant lump produced by excellent craftsmanship. It is entertainingly amusing in itself and its morbidly decorative appeal is further enhanced by its cast shadow(s).

The other installation, ‘Bottles Of Emotions’ by Ta Bach Duong occupies a corner and is made of an assortment of bottles suspended by red threads, containing brightly colored substance(s). In some of them one can see long needles. The pseudo-decorative quality of its making stands out, but in spite of its delicacy of feeling, where the symbolism of wounded, bottled-up emotions is plainly obvious, it is still yet another jar, bottle, test tube installation too many.

Altogether the symbolism of this presentation of works strive to project the attitude of alienation from the world, as perceived and expressed by the four artists participating in this project, who ask the audience to participate in the same feeling: “The project creates a multisensory and obsessive dimensional space, which lets people to open their senses to feel their own “Black Fog”.“[3]

Wittingly or unwittingly this exhibition brings to mind Kafka’s ‘The Metamorphosis’…

Imagine, waking up one morning as a bug?

Notes:

[1] from the translated in English printed version, available at the exhibition venue.
[2] from the translated in English printed version, available at the exhibition venue.
[3] a quote from the artists’ announcement of the exhibition project as published on Hanoi Grapevine.