HCMC – Exhibition “In One’s Breath – Nothing Stands Still” by Tuấn Mami

Opening: Fri 02 Mar 2018
Exhibition: 02 Mar – 09 May 2018
The Factory Contemporary Arts Centre

From the organizer:

You are invited to ‘In One’s Breath – Nothing Stands Still’, Hanoi-based artist Tuấn Mami’s first-ever solo show in Ho Chi Minh City.

“There is soil, bare soil
There is water, muddy water
This is where it all begins”
(excerpt from the Vietnamese epic poem ‘Đẻ Đất Đẻ Nước’)

The project ‘In One’s Breath – Nothing Stands Still’ by Tuấn Mami borrows its inspiration from the ancient Mường* epic ‘Đẻ Đất Đẻ Nước’ (‘The Birth of Soil and Water’), from which immerses a belief that there is spirituality in all beings, that the creation of the world is constantly in a state of chaos, where humans struggle to cohabit harmoniously with other creatures, and especially with themselves. Conducted on the basis of the artist’s ongoing fieldwork in the stone mining areas of his hometown, Hà Nam, since 2014, this multimedia body of work investigates and documents the pollution and significant loss of biodiversity caused by overexploitation of natural resources, and its devastating consequences on the structure of culture, and the people inhabiting this land.

The vectors that traverse the almost human-less environment of ‘In One’s Breath – Nothing Stands Still’ infers the greed of industrialization and modernization; the arrogant privileging of human desire, the violent decay of nature, and the irreversible decline of a society as it moves towards the ideal. From the grandioseness of the exhibition space and the sporadic arrangement of the works, to the cool and detached characteristics of the imagery – this exhibition points to a future after catastrophe.

Fragile traces of human existence are found
among landscapes in different states of ruin.
Is this the resurrection of heaven, or the start of a cosmic destruction?
Is this the end of Mother Nature, or her new beginning?

This uncanny premonition of impending disaster is intensified by the dual visualization of opposing qualities: stillness and movement, proximity and distance, silence and noise. It is as if a dystopia is casting its ominous shadow over everything as it hovers between dreams and nightmares, resurrection and extinction, past and future. By revealing a scene marked by both conflict and hope, and by making visible the unspoken and unheard reality of his land and people, Tuấn Mami demands us to face the ultimate truth – humanity, for all their contemplating, scrutinizing, reflecting and wondering – is once again trapped in the obliteration of its own creation.

Curated by Bill Nguyễn.

*The Mường is an ethnic group native to Vietnam and is the country’s third largest of 53 minority groups, inhabiting the mountainous region of northern Vietnam.

Tuấn Mami (b. 1981, Hanoi) graduated from the Vietnam University of Fine Arts in 2006, whose multidisciplinary practice spans across installation, video, performance and conceptual art. Constantly exploring new methods of expression, the artist burst into the international art scene for his daring, and increasingly meditative experimentations in both private and public spaces, analyzing the condition of human encounters (with each other and with the world around them) and critiquing the current state of society; while also attempting to shift or change (the perception of) this state. Tuấn Mami also participates and contributes greatly in the development of the Hanoi’s art scene, founding the mobile art centre MAC-Hanoi in 2012, and co-founding Nhà Sàn Collective in 2013; while performing as Visiting Faculty at the San Francisco Art Institute in the same year. He has participated in numerous exhibitions, art events and residencies, both at home and abroad including ‘Skylines with Flying people 3’ (Hanoi, 2014-2016), ‘In.Visible Borderline’ (MetaHouse Art Space, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, 2016), ‘Krisis’ (Bonington Gallery, Nottingham, UK, 2016), ‘Plastic Myths’ (Asia Culture Center, Gwangju, South Korea, 2015) etc.

For further inquiries, please contact: [email protected] | +84 (0)28 3744 2589

Tickets:

For adults: 35,000VND
For students: 25,000VND (with appropriate student ID)
For children under 16: free (with appropriate ID)

There is no entrance fee applied on the opening night.