KVT – Revved up about Rivers

KVT is one of the converted around Riverscapes IN FLUX

Riverscapes IN FLUX is an excellent multimedia art exhibition on show until April 29, 2012 on two floors of the Art Museum in Nguyen Thai Hoc (14 installations ) with 3 more unmissable pieces in the gallery at the Goethe Institute about 100 meters down the same street. Admission is free in both venues.

It’s a marvellous visual venture conceived and organized by Goethe in Vietnam and involves young and very competent artists from Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Myanmar, Indonesia and the Phillipines who were asked to reflect on the ecological, socio- economic and cultural changes that riverscapes in their countries are experiencing.

What struck me most was the universality of the concepts explored…all could have been riverscapes in Vietnam. All could be conceptually transferred to locations around the world, to first-world as well as second-world riverscapes.

My overall feeling after my first visit to this well-curated show is one of sadness.

Perhaps that’s because I finally departed after spending a lot of time in the 3 galleries on the second level at the museum. And in particular engrossed in ‘Chi River’ from Thailand. And perhaps too, because I’ve spent a lot of time exploring the river systems of Vietnam over the past 11 years and seen so many changes to environments and ecosystems. Changes that make me wince and cringe and often yell out in distress when I round a bend in the road or river expecting to refind perfection but now find destruction.

Chi River is a very simple but beautiful installation of sound, shadow and fishing traps. At first I thought that it desperately needed a quiet gallery all to itself but on reflection realized it worked brilliantly enveloped in the karaoke soundtrack of its neighboring installation – as it’s about modernity extinguishing ages-old lifestyles. That neighbor is another sad one too, as it reflects on the downstream destruction of a riverscape below a dam, and the drowning of a fertile river valley upstream. In a corner nearby is a very interactive installation display on the prow of a river boat providing crisps to eat, booklets to take away and a pretty little video. The underlying message about invasive sucker fish is also sad.

I couldn’t help but think about a riverscape I’ve seen recently on my mountain explorations that contains all of those sadnesses for me…It’s the drowned river valley caused by the new dam on the Da River at Muong La. You cross it on a grand new bridge on the new road from Son La to Tan Uyen. The waterscape looks even more beautiful and as large as a pristine Sydney Harbor would have appeared to invading Europeans in 1776 and it’s crying out for resorts, and tourist boats to ply its waters that contain, deep underneath, centuries long memories of communities that have now been evicted to higher ground in other mountain areas. Here they have had to clear the rain forest for farm land and in the process turn once green streams dirty brown with eroded soil that then flows siltingly into the new lake. It’s a good fishing place too. Even some new species.

Goethe states in its PR that it wants to contribute to raising awareness about the invaluable ecological and cultural heritage of the major river landscapes in Southeast Asia and has a series of excellent workshops, discussions, films, and kids activities (plus a blog site), to assist in the awareness raising.

The poet W.H. Auden stated …poetry makes nothing happen. This cynisism could also be applied to art (art makes nothing happen). Lets hope that Goethe’s very good efforts don’t only fall on the eyes, ears and intellect of the converted, as is too often the case when the environment becomes a focus.