KVT – Traffic-king in Hanoi
(Shortened Vietnamese version available)
KVT is totally impressed but totally saddened
Saw an important installation a couple of days ago that really impressed me and has stayed with me, niggling away as it should, and was intended to do.
Hardly any one in their right frame of mind gets old fashioned artists to make work that will have an influence on the public mind set….not when there is all that soopa doopa digital stuff out there.
Even the late 1900’s trend of getting popular musicians to sell social justice messages in big arenas has become pretty passé.
But MTV EXIT (End exploitation and trafficking) has done all the old stuff in its campaign to raise awareness about human trafficking in Vietnam. There was a big name gig at My Dinh National Stadium on Saturday night and a Human Trafficking Art Exhibition in the foyer of the Workers’ Theater in Trang Tien last week that involved a documentary, a performance artist, an installation artist and a photographer.
There were a couple of invitation-only bits to the exhibition that seemed to be on the first couple of times that I passed by, and lots of Youth Union activities on the other days that I caught it.
I missed the performance art, was suitably impressed by the documentary, and totally blown away by the collaborative photograph/installation part.
Luckily this part was not only seen where it would normally be exhibited, in an art gallery or art museum (where it would also have been stunning and packed a mighty punch). It was positioned where the participants milled about and passed through.
Luckily it’s a simple and portable exhibition that could be, and should be, set up in a host of public places as a mute example of man’s inhumanity to his fellow beings…though I guess in the monstrous business of human trafficking some of the monsters are women… though the real villains of the piece are the complacent public that shrugs its shoulders or turns a blind eye to it all because it doesn’t appear to directly affect them… and its all seems so far away…and is only happening to the poor and/or ethnic who don’t really need a second – or even a first-thought!
Basically it’s about the way that most of us knowingly or unknowingly commodify human life… giving it an economic rather than a compassionate value. This commodification is shown by the ubiquitous bar codes that are plastered across the faces of the Ha Giang ethnic minority people in the 40 or so black and white portrait photographs hung around the walls. The kids and women are made anonymous and insignificant as humans but valuable as tradable objects. (The bar codes are individualized, containing with the international designation for Vietnam, followed by the birthdate of the person and the date they were trafficked.)
The humans we see in the photos are those that have been rescued from being sold into lives of drudgery, abuse, slavery, even death in the live organ trade, and who represent the tens of thousands from throughout Vietnam and the millions of mainly poor throughout the world who have been successfully sold or abducted.
The brief texts under each photo are telling. Sometimes the abductor is a person known and trusted by the victim.
Hi KVT,
I suspect some misunderstanding occurred when you wrote that:
“….The installation of victims’ hair in glass jars….”
Please check out:
from: http://www.tuoitrenews.vn/cmlink/tuoitrenews/lifestyle/hanoi-art-exhibition-features-human-trafficking-1.73401 :
“Artist Doan Hoang Kiensaid he had gathered the hair of 120 volunteer students from universities and colleges around the capital city.”
(PS > if the artist did as you report it would be immediately criticized for voyeurism and insensitivity to the victims.)
Well spotted…I wonder if it would be voyeurism or insensitivity if the owners of the hair…or guardians…knowingly gave permission…that is if the hair were really that of the almost trafficked!
Pity my version of the installation isn’t the real one…but it’s still a pretty powerful bit of work…well in my opinion!
I would think that if the victims gave knowingly their hair for the creation of the artwork, the charge of voyeurism and insensitivity would not necessarily stick (though this might be debatable) to the art as such and the artist who does it, but perhaps then the artist can not really claim it entirely as “his/her art” as it would be more of a form of a genuine protest from the victims themselves, (which does not really translate into art as an art form in principle).
In general I personally do appreciate activist/political/cause-motivated-art and believe that it has its own place in the myriad of contemporary art forms and artistic expressions, but as a rule of thumb always look very carefully at what is the underlying motive for it, in what shape or form it appears, what exactly is trying to say or saying and finally, what are the inferences from it for the broader public…
(…I guess we can have a long conversation on the subject..)
PS> in the case of this artwork, the hair donated by students from Hanoi is an expression of support for the cause, which is powerful in itself as it says that the young generation is not indifferent to the issue…
But whose rule of thumb decides? It’s all a bit Catch 22. And in the long run who cares anyway? Conundrum builds on conundrum.
@ fascinator
Please read today’s KVT dhttp://hanoigrapevine.com/2012/05/kvt-the-drama-and-the-portrait/#more-62879
which perhaps will be of some help in answering your questions.
… some more thought to questions of ethics in art perhaps?…and if in the long run you do not care, many others do, especially the ones directly affected…