Saigon City Slang
11 July – 04 August 2024
11 am – 06 pm, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday
Sàn Art
Millennium Masteri B6.16 & B6.17, 132 Bến Vân Đồn, D4, HCMC
From the organizer:
Summer holidays, closed schools and long monsoon afternoons with little to do? Into DIY art practices or curious about postmillennial lingo? Come join us this July-August at Sàn Art’s 2024 summer pop-up.
On this special occasion, Sàn Art is pleased to lend our space to Saigonese and Saigon-based emerging talents of the 90s and early 00s, as an open-studio introducing new faces and aesthetics. Planned as a DIY installation take-over, this pop-up showcases the eclectic, cosmopolitan, urban, dissonant, irreverent, fast-paced and heterodox nature of the imaginaries nurtured by this city. Featuring Vy Trinh, Pham The Vinh, Teo Pham, Rab, Vũtrụ inc., and with a special commission of video archives remixed by Vinatapes, and design creations by Ném Space.
Artists & Guests
Ném Space
Ném is a Sài Gòn-based design studio run by designer/artist Dương Gia Hiếu with an approach from upcycled objects. Ném focuses on how to improve the relationship between people and objects by design.
Tèo Phạm
Tèo Phạm was born and raised in Lam Dong province. He graduated from Ho Chi Minh City University of Fine Arts in 2020 and is currently living and working in Saigon. His artistic practice aims for a completely natural way of creating, without much interference in terms of content and technical constraints. He is always looking for new approaches, ways of translating and changing his way of expression with new materials. Tèo Phạm had a solo exhibition titled ‘What’s left behind the Rectum? Chapter 1’ at Ươm Art Hub (HCMC), in 2022, and ‘Chapter 2’ at Mo Art Space (Hanoi), in 2023. He joined the group exhibition ’Foliage IV’ and ‘Life: A User’s Manual’ at VCCA (Hanoi) in 2022 and 2024.
Pham The Vinh
Pham The Vinh is a Ho Chi Minh City-based artist, holding a degree in Painting from the Ho Chi Minh City University of Fine Arts. His artistic vision embraces life in its entirety一humans, animals, plants, objects and other dimensional existences. Constantly seeking to evolve, Vinh is dedicated to innovating his personal style while staying in rhythm with an ever-changing world. Recent group shows include Ồ Ạt Oh Art Festival (HCMC, 2024), S.E.A Focus (Singapore, 2024), Dogma Prize (HCMC, 2023), ‘Bro-Active’ (HCMC, 2022), and ‘Same same but different’ (HCMC, 2021) amongst others.
Rab
Rab is a multimedia artist based in Saigon, Vietnam. Her practice focuses on the relationship that exists between the mind and its surroundings, memory and sacredness. Her recent work gravitates towards primal experience in order to excavate the intimacy of natural materials in mankind’s spiritual life. She self-curated her solo exhibition ‘Dreaming of weaving the sky net’ in 2023. Recent group exhibitions and studio openings include ‘LOTUS POND’ (NGÃ Art Space, 2024), S.E.A. Focus 2024 (S.E.A. Focus Art, 2024), Choir Tam Tit (Á space & 3nam studio, 2023), live.make.share art residency with Hien Van Ceramics (Undecided Productions, 2023), ‘4th Vietnam Festival of Creativity & Design’ (2022), and No Cai Bum (2022).
Vinatapes
Vinatapes is an audio-visual project that aims to unearth, revisit, and archive nostalgic VHS and Hi-8 tape footage recorded around Vietnam in the heyday of the analog camcorder—mostly between 1985 and the year 2000. Most selected clips and videos contain some semblance of charm, humour or absurdity, while other footage is shared for historical significance. Additionally, Vinatapes has an affinity for advertisements, music videos, and television from this special time and place in Vietnam.
Vy Trịnh
Vy Trịnh 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 labour 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 exhibitions include Sàn Art (HCMC, Vietnam), Shisanwu LLC (Queens, NY), Worthless Studios (Brooklyn, NY), Atelier (Philadelphia, PA), Automat (Philadelphia, PA), White Columns (New York, NY), and Gallery MC (New York, NY). She currently lives and works between Ho Chi Minh City and New York. Her opening solo exhibition ‘ON DA DREAM’, presented at Galerie Quynh, in Ho Chi Minh City, will open in August 2024.
Vũtrụ inc.
Vũtrụ inc. is a multiversal art enterprise working between Saigon, Vietnam, and Sydney, Australia. Founded in 2023 by Nguyễn Vũ Trụ and Dennis Nguyen, the early days of Vũtrụ inc. saw the art collective creating public artworks on the streets of Sydney, creating altars/shrines crafted from found objects. Vũtrụ inc. has since expanded its operations into a cross-disciplinary art enterprise, specialising in curation and pop-up events. Their collaborative projects often explore themes of youth identity in an era where multifaceted layers of narratives overlap and intersect, pulling influences from visual art history, the street, underground subculture, religious iconography and internet memes.
About Sàn Art
Founded in 2007 in Ho Chi Minh City as an artist-led platform, Sàn Art has since grown into a leading independent arts organisation in Vietnam and the region. Maintaining a commitment to grassroots support for local and international artists and cultural work, Sàn Art is also a site for critical discourse with regular educational initiatives.
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