Overvoltage
17 Nov – 31 Dec 2023
High-voltage electric station 33B, Gia Lâm Train Factory
551 Nguyễn Văn Cừ, Gia Thụy, Long Biên, Hà Nội
From Hanoi Festival of Creative Design:
Vietnam Art Collection (VAC) is delighted to present ‘Overvoltage’, a site-responsive intervention by Vy Trịnh, curated by Vân Đỗ and organized by Á Space.
The scanner stops working suddenly, total black out. A train crashed, the chassis is burning into hazy ashes and flames. No one knows what has happened. The clock ticks backwards, time stops then runs again x 5.0 speed. The sculptor arrives on an Akira slide. Everything is pitch black. The last light bulb begins to flicker.
Space is the main material in ‘Overvoltage’. Taking an existing site – an electric supply room – as an organic and mechanical site, both human and nonhuman, ‘Overvoltage’ witnesses an encounter between existing traces of an overall architectural structure and a sculptor who will produce on site, within a specific time frame, using materials sourced from electrical supply stores, adhering to the industry and the ecologies within the factory and nearby the site (Long Biên District).
‘Overvoltage’ proposes that a particular site is not necessarily overcast by its socio-political shadows, but can rather be felt and made present – like how electricity current delivers, flows, and interrupts – through affect. Through Vy’s methodology of active working on-site, the train factory becomes her motor in revealing the kind of personality it once was and is as of now – being exposed, intervened, coming into sudden contact with strangers, awaiting an undetermined future.
Acknowledgements:
Technical support: Nguyễn Long Biên, Hồng Kèn
Special thanks to: Muchun Niu, Sophie Huang, Nguyễn Thuý Anh, Bill Nguyễn, Nguyễn Anh Tuấn, Bùi Thanh Hương, Mai Thanh Nam, Linh Lê, Ngọc, Nguyễn Văn Thành, Mai Hưng Trung
Vy Trịnh (b. 1996, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam) is a sculptor whose work explores how networks of objects extend beyond themselves and reflect the larger socio-economic textures and conditions of contemporary Vietnam. Her practice follows the traffic of objects, different forms of labor and agency, and the sites where these categories are constantly being negotiated and improvised.
Vy holds an MFA from the University of Pennsylvania and a BFA from Parsons School of Design. Select group exhibitions include Worthless Studios (Brooklyn, NY), Atelier (Philadelphia, PA), Automat (Philadelphia, PA), White Columns (New York, NY), and Gallery MC (New York, NY). Vy is the recipient of the 2022 Christopher Lyon Memorial Award. Select awarded grants include Humanities Urbanism Design Initiative (H+U+D) (2022), The Sachs Program for Art Innovation (2022), and Center for Experimental Ethnography (2022). She currently lives and works in Ho Chi Minh City and New York.
Vân Đỗ (b. 1995, Vietnam) is a Hanoi-based curator and writer whose practice concerns artistic interventions and negotiation of existing sites and seeks for critical engagements with the local communities. From 2019 to 2021, Vân worked in the curatorial team of The Factory Contemporary Arts Centre (HCMC). Since 2022, Van has been Artistic Director of Á Space, an artist-driven independent space for experimental practices in Hanoi.
Selected exhibitions include: White Noise (Nguyen Art Foundation, HCMC, 2023); Tương tương ngộ ngộ cá kho tộ, ngộ ngộ tương tương đậu kho tương (Á Space, Hanoi, 2023); IN:ACT 2022 (Nhà Sàn Collective & Á Space, Hanoi & Kassel, 2022); Hà Ninh Pham: Recursive Fables (A+ WORKS of ART, Kuala Lumpur, 2022); Within / Between / Beneath / Upon (The Factory, HCMC, 2021); An ode to the microscopic (Dcine, HCMC, 2020).
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