Open Studio of MAP 2024 themed Going Places, Moving Things: A New Narrative of Mobility
The Month of Arts Practice (MAP) is an intensive international art exchange project initiated and operated by Heritage Art Space, now in its 10th year. Since 2023, MAP has embarked on a three-year project on artistic research and experimentation centered around the theme of Mobility. Unlike previous iterations, MAP 2024 operates as a mobile laboratory for contemporary art, where artists explore various dimensions of Mobility through their creative practices. Instead of a final exhibition, MAP 2024 adopts the model of an open artist studio—offering the public a glimpse into works in progress, continually evolving and transforming.
The artist studios at Long Biên Art Space opened for public visits from December 5 to December 20, 2024. MAP 2024 marked the 10th edition of the Month of Arts Practice and the second year dedicated to the theme of Mobility. In its first year, MAP established an experimental lab on Mobility with parallel activities in Hanoi and Bremen, involving two multinational artist groups in re-examining the theme. In its second year, under the sub-theme Going Places, Moving Things, participating artists and practitioners realized their reflections on Mobility within diverse environments, contexts, and situations across Hanoi and other locations such as Hòa Bình, Ho Chi Minh City, Vientiane, Khon Kaen, and Bremen. This exploration delved into the purpose, behaviors, and meanings of movement, as well as its inherent contradictions.
The open studio showcased the work of artists directly involved in Hanoi, including Higashikata Yuhei, Benjamin Sunarjo, Paulius Šliaupa, Laima Matuzonytė, Ngô Đình Bảo Châu, Nguyễn Vũ Hải, A Sông, ba-bau AIR, and guest artists from the Thai collective Baan Noorg. Concurrently, the artist group in Bremen, Germany—comprising Felix Dreesen, Florian Witt, Jeroen Jacobs, Kayle Brandon, Siegfried Bank, Soobeen Woo, and Alexander Noah— created posters to be printed and displayed on Giao Hàng Tiết Kiệm (GHTK)’s delivery motorbikes. This interaction bridges art and public space, sparking dynamic engagements.
Mobility and the Movement of Communities
Hanoi is rapidly evolving into a megacity in both size and population, driven by the inevitable movement of various communities. The river flowing through the city moves naturally, carrying with her the movement of people and communities. What is considered the center today may become the periphery tomorrow. Nothing is permanent. Responding to these shifts in communities and places, MAP 2024 brings together three groups of artists, each offering unique perspectives that both dialogue with and accompany one another.
Inspired by the migration of Vietnamese people to Southeast Asian countries, the interdisciplinary artist group A Sông presents the studio work Wondering of a Parallel Somewhere. Upon entering the space, viewers encounter a table—its flat surface creating a sense of non-linear time: bricks made by the French are brought from Vientiane, seven bricks crafted from rice paper, a four-channel video, a book with hidden Thai characters only visible in darkness, and a curatorial text. Through this exhibition and interactive gestures such as rubbing, flipping pages, and touching, the artist collective invites the audience to uncover hidden histories that significantly contribute to a broader reflection on the past.
In a random interaction within the studio, the works by Baan Noorg Collaborative Arts & Culture are displayed alongside A Sông’s in the studio, creating a resonant dialogue. A Conversation between Thailand and Vietnam by Parichat Tanapiwattanakul captures conversations and shared experiences of the community in Thai Village, Hòa Bình, Vietnam. Meanwhile, Geo-Romanticism (Thailand-Vietnam Relations) by Awika (2024) delves into journeys and relationships through personal stories, collective memories, and experiences.
Shifting focus from Hanoi to Hòa Bình, Work-in-progress: Weather forecast 02 by ba-bau AIR explores narratives and perspectives around the city of Hòa Bình City. The project juxtaposes these with the contemporary landscape, especially the monumental Hòa Bình Hydropower Plant. Animated images within site-specific installations invite the audience into a spatiotemporal plane where the former experimental facility of the hydropower plant is now a pickleball court with humorous yet thought-provoking movements prompt diverse reflections among the group members.
Interactive Play with Space
Spaces open up across multiple dimensions—above, below, left, right, distant, wide—and people suggest movement: forward, backward, turning, passing by, passing through, or standing still. Movement within space or movement alongside space enables a re-discovery of familiar places through fresh approaches. The practices of the artists inspire reflections on the relationship between humans and spaces, where motion serves as a form of both connection and fragmentation.
At MAP 2023, Ngô Đình Bảo Châu created a playground within a former workspace, playfully engaging with the previous functions of a defunct factory. Continuing this exploration of the playground, in the second year participating in the Mobility project, she developed a Database from Human’s Measurement project which collects data on the dimensions of human motion, emotions, and the body, using it to design and the playground she had established. These data-driven studies are paving the way for soft sculpture-installations in the coming year, further materializing her reflections on mobility.
At MAP 2024, Nguyễn Vũ Hải dialogues with real-world spaces, exploring locations with functional yet fluid roles in daily life, traversing fragmented, irregular terrains. He re-examines movement – sometimes under the form of adaptation – where spaces adjust to themselves, and people modify their behavior to coexist with thier surroundings. His work, head to the west | float up upper floors, is a conversation with space through walking, anchored by a recorded narrative voice.
Joining MAP 2024 for the first time, Paulius Šliaupa approaches and develops ideas of mobility. Inspired by a fusion of reality and the Vietnamese legend of Sơn Tinh, Thủy Tinh, his video Undercurrents reveals shifts in the connections between humans and landscapes. These relationships are bridged by the sounds of life itself: karaoke, street vendor calls in Hanoi, and the echoes of machinery, forming an auditory tapestry of place and time.
Moving with the City, Becoming the City
Benjamin Sunarjo, a multidisciplinary artist of Indonesian origin now living in Biel, explores the transformative power of the body by exposing moments of pure physicality. His practice in MAP 2024 revisits the theme of mobility through the work Walking backwards, which at first glance seems like a simple response: movement in Hanoi’s public spaces? The act of walking backward is framed by the complex choreography of the city’s daily rhythms: motorbikes and joggers passing by, street vendors displaying their goods, and commuters navigating their routes. Collisions could occur at any moment, yet everything unfolds more smoothly than expected. Walking backwards—a simple yet fundamental gesture—not only reverses the mechanisms and processes ingrained in us, but also questions our expectations of direction and emphasizes the fragility of the body. The work is documented as a video, showcased in the studio.
Scattered throughout the exhibition space, vertically hanging fabrics both divide and connect the space, Walk-through by Laima Matuzonytė simulates the experience of navigating city streets, creating a metaphorical walking path. These vertical installations, layered with fragmented stories, transform into pathways—inviting the audience to interact with the artwork while exploring the works of other artists around them. The nature of movement, memory, and transformation within the urban landscape is gradually revealed through her work.
Labor Distribution in the Context of Globalization
Last year, Japanese artist Yuhei Higashikata presented How to Move Seeded Bananas, focusing on banana varieties and the export of bananas from Vietnam to Japan. Reflecting on today’s farms growing seedless bananas—a genetically modified species—as a mirror of global capitalism and colonial history, Yuhei continues to explore the theme of Mobility in MAP 2024 through a study of monkeys. He connects monkeys and baseball as symbols of cultural reconciliation and Asian mobility.
Alexander Noah, in MAP 2023, created sculptural installations using crumpled paper bags that once held bread, molded into hand-like shapes, exhibited at Gia Lâm Train Factory. The work addressed globalization: the mobility of products far surpassing the mobility of those who produce them. Labor moves, generating movements beyond itself.
This year, the concept of mobility and the distribution of goods is uniquely expressed through the Mobile Poster Series. Posters, designed by the Bremen artist group in Germany, were sent to Vietnam, where Heritage Art Space collaborated with GHTK to print and display them on delivery motorbikes. Over the course of a week (December 14–20, 2024), these posters accompanied delivery drivers on their daily work routes, bringing art to every corner of the city. The posters, the movement of GHTK motorbikes, the urban landscape, the behavior of delivery drivers, and the responses of city residents intertwined to create layered meanings, shaping a distinctive artistic concept.
In a closing reflection, Professor-Artist Ingo Vetter shared, “What was important for us [the organizing team] was to recreate communication between the working groups in Bremen and Hanoi and to exchange art about ‘mobility’ in a form that reintegrates into the mobility of the receiving location. The poster series, traveling throughout Hanoi with delivery drivers, is a fantastic result, and we are very pleased with it.”
Conclusion
Reflecting on the work of artists in Month of Arts Practice 2024: Going Places, Moving Things, diverse ideas and approaches to the theme of Mobility are simultaneously present in art and through art. Art opens up countless possibilities for practice, both accompanying and critically engaging with seemingly familiar issues, creating new layers of thought and perception for both artists and the audience. Building upon the outcome of MAP 2024, the final year (2025), with the theme Destinations?, will focus on the impact of mobility. Projects will explore the flow of ideas, the international movement of goods, migration, and non-human elements, advancing the discourse on mobility to new frontiers.
Written by Trần Thu Thảo
Hà Nội, 30.12.2024
English translation: Út Quyên
Photo source Heritage Art Space
