Delay
Opening party: 06 PM, Sat 18 Jul 2026
Exhibition: 11 AM – 07 PM, Tues – Sun, 19 – 31 Jul 2026
Manzi Exhibition Space
No. 2 ngõ Hàng Bún, Ba Đình, Hà Nội
From the organizer:
There is a gap that can never be fully crossed or closed: the distance between the moment something happens and the moment someone begins to perceive it. No matter how hard the observer tries, and whatever support they are given, they remain, always, a step behind. Beauty, in its most absolute sense, seems to reveal itself fully only at the threshold of vanishing. A delay that is inherent, inevitable, impossible to escape: Delay—this imperfection of observation, as well as the ephemeral nature of every moment and event—runs through Quynh Dong’s practice. She approaches and interrogates observation, memory, and connectedness through a range of materials, from sculpture and painting to video and moving images—yet all of them unfold from a single core medium: performance art. The body, time, and the repetition of the act of looking give rise to structures that appear fragmentary at first glance, presences that hover, hard to hold onto. No story is told in full—only fragments of memory, kinship, belonging… are left open to multiple readings.
Delay is not a lament for an ending that never came in time, nor a lingering ache over a missed step. Throughout the works, presences drawn from nature—a withered flower, a dried leaf, a forest, a huge sky, and a forceful sea—appear raw and unadorned, like anchoring points holding, with tenderness, everything that has slipped away, everything that can no longer be changed. To give up a single, separate form and dissolve into a shared current—this, perhaps, is the only shape in which love, memory, beauty, or anything at all can remain and endure.
About artist
Quynh Dong was born in 1982 in Hai Phong, Vietnam. She attended the Design School in Biel/Bienne for a degree in graphic design, graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the Bern University of the Arts, and earned her MA in Fine Arts at the Zurich University of the Arts. She completed her residency programs at The Sommerakademie im Zentrum Paul Klee in Bern(SAK), The International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP) in New York City, Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam, MMCA Changdong, run by National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea in Seoul and Month of Arts Practice (MAP) at Heritage Space in Hanoi. In 2016, she first had her solo exhibition “Quynh by Night” at Nha San Collective in Hanoi, Vietnam. Dong composes her works as paintings (conceptually). She now lives and works in Zurich, Switzerland.
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