KVT – at Goethe and Nha San

Isn’t it funny how some weeks things are coincidental…

take Blue Dragon’s Long Bien Bridge project launched at Bookworm, the Face to Face photography project by disabled persons’ from Thanh Hoa at Goethe, and Jim Elinski’s participatory project at Nha San Duc.  All three are participatory projects that combine elements of visual art with a social education purpose, less so with Elinski’s Hanoi six week adventure but if you click onto his website you can see where he’s coming from.

It’s not for me to opine the first two projects. The long term effects on participants and effective use of fundees money is left to professional, appointed reviewers. I can only comment on their artistic impact on me as a viewer. I’ll leave Blue Dragon out of my sights as stuff by children, even prodigies, leaves me feeling fuzzy but hesitant to comment.

The well chosen photographs at Goethe are superb, not in any real artistic way, but because so many portray village and provincial life so very well. Foreigner and Vietnamese middle class photographers who attempt similar themes often have finished work that comes across as invasive voyeurism, but the photos at Goethe are real insights that pack a punch. Naturally a lot of the imags deal with diabled subjects and these set you back but they are poignant in their matter-of-factness and their feeling of the inevitability of suffering that is the plight of poverty. Of course the photos on show are a few of the hundreds discarded and the final installation is the work of an accomplished and perhaps professional curator…but it’s the honesty of the photos that is the star of the show. The accompanying book with photos is very good and is proving really popular with ordinary Vietnamese we show it to. Workers in the city from country villages are absorbed by its familiarities and in-your-face candidness.

(Although not my favorite photograph at Goethe, the fabulous dyptich of zebra painted ponies and the zebra-printed high heeled beauties is enormous fun!)

Elinski’s paricipatory exhibition is also absorbing, perhaps not so much by what is on show but by the realization of the possibilities of an extended community arts or arts education program. It was good to leave photograph behind and look at other mediums….in this case the traditional use of paint on canvas to the ephemeral concept of citizens’ breaths trapped in opaque balloons.  Too often similar participatory themes are pursued or headed by people whose egos dominate the process and the finished work but I feel that Elinski’s approach is one of co-operative and student centered education. As was also evident in the former projects…