Exhibition “Journey to the Seven-Hill Land” by Nguyen The Son

Opening: Fri 15 Mar 2019, 6 pm
Artist talk: Sat 13 Apr 2019, 7 – 9 pm
Exhibition: 15 Mar – 15 Apr, 8 am – 8 pm
—
AGOhub
12 Hoa Ma, Hanoi

From the organizer:

Continuing the journey of the “Carrying the carriers” model, as I step out from making photo-reliefs, this time my “Carrying the carriers” from Vietnam made a very long trip halfway around the world to the flower flag country (USA). I spent more than a month in Worcester Massachusetts participating in a residency program at the Worcester Art Museum, and while there two “carrier” models were “born” in the Studio of the Museum.

These carriers, a female street vendor selling the vegetable morning glory on a Hanoi sidewalk and a male shipper driving his Honda motorcycle on a Ho Chi Minh City main road have been able to travel and interact across the streets of Worcester.

Worcester is a city with a large Vietnamese community, mostly coming here after the 90s under HO (Humanitarian Operation resettlement program). Worcester is the second largest Massachusetts city in New England after Boston. With a location close to the center of Massachusetts, Worcester is known as the “Heart of the Commonwealth” (so the heart shape is also taken as the official symbol of the city). Worcester is also a city with a very poetic folk name – “seven-hill city” with a hill-top terrain that is not very suitable for long walks. Therefore, today the most popular means of transportation are cars, every house has at least one to several cars, and hardly ever does one see the appearance of motorcycles, bicycles and even pedestrians on the road. Therefore, the appearance of the burden of the two “transporters” from Vietnam on the street became very prominent in that context. A dreamlike absurdity brought a joyful laughter and sharing to the connection of the Vietnamese community and the local people in the city. It is like a distant image reminding everyone of the hardships of the immigrants in the past from dozens of years ago, as well as another reality reminiscent of a sad homeland that still hurts in the heart of the Vietnamese….

Nguyen The Son

Free entry

Follow updates on the event page