This is Night, This is Day, and That is Us

Opening: Tues 21 Mar 2023, 05 pm
Showcase: 21 – 27 Mar 2023
Cù Rú Bar
02 Phạm Hồng Thái, Ward 10, Đà Lạt

From the organizer:

“I can see fate burning with desire, and will destroy me if it is not satisfied…”

“I don’t know why, but I know for sure that the traveler doesn’t want to be seen, so we ride at night and hide during the day so that no one knows we’re out of sight….”

– Ly de Angeles (Witchcraft Theory and Practice, the ritual of self-initiation: A journey between worlds)

Over the centuries of civilized history passed and stored, man has never stopped in his quest to explore strange areas covered by darkness. All material inventions serve only one thing: we are curious to know more about what the world is doing. Yet, despite the most sophisticated tools, in a given field, man comes to a point where he reaches the edge of certainty where conscious knowledge cannot cross. At this time, the critical crisis brings people back to their natural selves, trying to solve the “knot” in the vague unconsciousness. All schools of thought such as religion, philosophy, art… are only meant to help guide us to find our concerns: what is nature?

The impetus of both processes, visible on the emotional surface, is the “manic” of not being able to keep up with the brilliant infinity and the “depression” of boredom, but to sit with infinite stillness. As night and day alternately come and go, the two phases of the process are closely linked, bringing us into the “divine drama” of life.

“Where there is no life, where there are endless fragments of ideas, where thousands of stars of lost souls shine, here I accept the way and walk patiently. Another time, without death, when the drama is filled with the knitting of wishes, when the spirits of the golden people flicker, now we rest in the inn and live comfortably.”

It’s ironic and also wonderful, despite thousands of years of human experience, a newborn baby today can’t be more secure than in the past, they can only be “in human form”. This is the next step to explore the vast world beyond which the whole is constantly evolving. In our turn, each of us continues to explore the world through the same two paths as history has foretold. The path may be different, but the feeling is the same. That’s why when we touch artifacts from old alien times, we still feel the same emotion, what our ancestors felt and we feel.

“The night of creation is the awakening day of the ascetic self-mastery, while the day of creation is the night of the silent clairvoyant” – Chi Ton Ca (Paragraph 2, verse 69), Translated by Nguyen Que Duong.

Will we be able to see and understand ourselves better, if we constantly have to participate in life? Or what if we keep contemplating under the flickering lights in the middle of the night? No one can say exactly how to do it right, because it is completely intimate and private. Each era in general and each individual in particular, through personal and collective experiences, can clearly understand the path that the world believes in and entrusts.

On the occasion of the Spring Equinox 2023, Phu Phiem had the opportunity to go to Da Lat at Cu Ru Bar to perform a painting exhibition. Hopefully, through the journey of discovering works, and sharing personal stories we have experienced recently, igniting a warm fire so that we can continue to warm each of us on the journey of a changing world to come.

For what we can be sure of, is that we too will be back in the sun, time and time again…

Writing text by Ho Bao Duy, translated by Trung Anh

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