“In a hyperactive world, stillness is the deepest rebellion”
10 AM – 06 PM, 29 Sep – 04 Oct 2026
Rare Sea
03 Đặng Thị Nhu, Bến Thành ward, HCMC
From the organizer:
“Buổi sáng tôi mặc áo đi giày
ra đứng ngoài đường”
Excerpt from “Bài thơ của một người yêu nước mình” (Trần Vàng Sao, 1967)
A gesture is zoomed in and stretched through a flick of frame. Push, drag, pin, receive, fall, saw, pop, stick, write… the gesture repeats until it begins to shed its familiarity. Bodies carry history and memories, while materials unearth ideals and oppressions. In that estrangement, the body connects with nature and landscape, while the camera observes, archives and interweaves moments. We begin to notice the weight of labor, the precarity of the body, the silence of institutions and the tenderness of memory and collective belief. The moving images here invite us into that space between the familiar and the strange, where performance leaves its remnants, the camera does not only record but interprets, and where the smallest gesture can flap its wings for changes that could never be expected.
The screening room opens with an initiative of reengaging performance videos on Youtube with excerpts from mystical realism novels, inviting imagination stemming from quotidian acts. It moves through works exploring the connection around bodies, what comes before and what promises after. Small gestures call for a manifesto, mediations connect the body of oneself with the body of nature and the body of machine. Encountering bodies in relation with landscape, the gestures blur and bright, reflecting the intangible forces of erasure. The room ends at the exploration of materials, where deconstructions of diverse systems rumble through semi-sacred labor.
A part of the exhibition “fiction, fractions”, “In a hyperactive world, stillness is the deepest rebellion” is co-curated by Lê Đ. Chung and Lại Minh Ngọc, introducing moving image works from eight artists Melati Suryodarmo, Trương Công Tùng, Bảo Hân, Hoàng Anh, Nguyễn Hữu Hải Duy, Phan Anh, Trọng Gia Nguyễn and Trần Lương. The screening-discussion room opens from 10:00 AM to 6PM, September 29 to October 4.
About the artists
Melati Suryodarmo’s performances have been dealing with the relationship between a human body, a culture in which it belongs to and a constellation where it lives. Through the presence, she compiles, extracts, conceptualized and translates some phenomenon or subjects into movement, actions, and gestures that are specified to her performance. Melati Suryodarmo ́s performances concern with cultural, social and political aspects, in which she articulates through her psychological and physical body. Her performances feature elements of physical presence and visual art to talk about identity, energy, politics and relationships between the body and its environments.
Melati Suryodarmo studied at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste Braunschweig, Germany under Marina Abramovic. Suryodarmo has presented her works in various international festivals and exhibitions since 1996, including the 50th Venice Biennale 2003, Marking the territory, IMMA Dublin. e.t.c. In 2005, Melati Suryodarmo has performed at the Van Gogh Museum Amsterdam, during the Exhibition of the Life of Egon Schiele in 2005; Videobrasil Sao Paolo (2005), Haus der Kulturen der Welt Berlin, 52nd Venice Biennale dance Festival (2007), KIASMA Helsinki (2007), Manifesta7, in Bolzano, Italy (2008),and In Transit festival, HKW Berlin (2009), Luminato Festival of the Arts, Toronto, (2012), Asia Pacific Triennale, Qagoma Brisbane (2015), Guangzhou Triennale, Guangdong, China (2015); Singapore Biennale, Singapore, (2016). Since the last six years, Suryodarmo has been presenting her works in Indonesia and other South East Asian countries. For the Padepokan Lemah Putih Solo Indonesia, she has been organizing an annual Performance Art Laboratory Project and “undisclosed territory” performance art event in Solo Indonesia since 2007. In 2012, she founded “Studio Plesungan” an art space for performance art laboratory. She was working as the Artistic Director of the Jakarta Biennale 2017, one of the core visual arts biennale in South East Asia and Artistic Director of the Indonesia Bertutur 2022 and 2024, Indonesia Festival of the Arts ad Culture.
Nguyen Huu Hai Duy was born in Hanoi. He started his experience with artistic practices initially through observation. Aside from that, he spends most of his time wandering around, taking note, and archiving into his mind the frivolous and incomprehensible phenomenon.
Phan Anh is a multidisciplinary artist working across video, installation, performance, and text. Through a process-driven approach, he uses his body and everyday materials to reexamine history, perception, and the human condition.
Bao-Han Nguyen-Vo is a cultural worker and visual artist from Nha Trang (Vietnam). She holds a BA in Arts and Media Studies with honors from Fulbright University Vietnam; and an MA in Art and Social Action from NCAD Dublin. Han’s practice combines visual ethnography and archival research, using documentary photography, experimental film, and community-centered curation to reimagine fragmented histories through vernacular narratives. She co-produced ‘Lèm dì dị Open Studios’ (2023-2024), ‘As Time Gone By’ (2024), and ‘Uncertain Ethnographers’ (Dublin, 2026). Her photobook, ‘As Water Erodes’ (2024), wove personal archives to interrogate historical amnesia along the coastal hinterlands of central Vietnam. Han’s collaborative work includes Hagait Ni (2023-2024), a preservation project on Cham music heritage. During her stay in Ireland from 2024 to 2026, Han developed her socially engaged artistic practice, adopting an auto-anthropological perspective through working with the community of Vietnamese female immigrant workers at nail salons in Dublin.
Trương Công Tùng (b. 1986, based in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam) grew up in Dak Lak among diverse ethnic communities in Vietnam’s Central Highlands. He graduated from the Ho Chi Minh Fine Arts University in 2010, majoring in lacquer painting. With a research focus spanning science, cosmology, philosophy, and environmental studies, he works across various media, including video, installation, painting, and found objects. His work reflects personal contemplations on the cultural and geopolitical transformations driven by modernization, as seen through the evolving ecology, beliefs, and mythology of his homeland. Trương is also a member of Art Labor (founded in 2012), a collective that bridges visual art and social/life sciences to produce alternative, informal knowledge through artistic and cultural activities in various public contexts and locales.
Trương Công Tùng has exhibited extensively both in Vietnam and internationally, as a solo artist and as part of the Art Labor Collective. Selected solo exhibitions include: “Day Wanes… Night Waxes”, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburger (2025); “Trail Dust”, Canal Projects, New York (2024); “The Disoriented Garden… A Breath of Dream” at Sàn Art, Ho Chi Minh City (2023); Sa Sa Art Project, Phnom Penh (2024); Jim Thompson Art Center, Bangkok (2024), and MUSEION, Bolzano (2024), supported by the Han Nefkens Foundation, where he won the Southeast Asian Video Art Production Grant 2023. Trương has also exhibited in group exhibition at the 3rd Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale, Saudi Arabia (2026); the 11th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Brisbane (2024); Para Site, Hong Kong (2024); Collateral Event of the 60th Venice Biennale organized by the Bangkok Art Biennale Foundation (2024); the 58th Carnegie International, Pittsburgh (2022); Manzi Art Space, Hanoi (2021); Sàn Art, Ho Chi Minh City (2019); the Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw (2018); Dhaka Art Summit (2018); Kadist, San Francisco (2016) and Taipei Biennial, Taiwan (2016). His work has been collected by MUSEION, Italy; Kadist Art Foundation, Paris and San Francisco; Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, Poland; The Nguyen Art Foundation, Vietnam; The Outpost Arts Organization, Vietnam; Post Vidai, Vietnam and Switzerland; Aura Contemporary Art Foundation, Japan, and others.
Trọng Gia Nguyễn (b. 1971, Saigon, Vietnam) is a Vietnamese-American artist and curator living and working between Brussels, Belgium and Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. His broad scope of production includes everything from installation to new media, film, painting, sculpture, performances, and web-based projects. He has received grants and residencies from organizations including: Gate 27 (Istanbul); Boghossian Foundation (Brussels); Museum of Arts & Design, Bronx Museum, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and Harvestworks (New York); Artist in Residence in the Everglades and Cannonball (Miami). As a curator, Trong has organized over 30 exhibitions at museums and galleries, including The Factory Contemporary Arts Centre (Ho Chi Minh City), Boca Raton Museum of Art, Freies Museum Berlin, Residency Unlimited, and Zabriskie Gallery.
Tran Luong (b. 1960, Vietnam) graduated from the Hanoi University of Fine Arts in 1983 and later formed a collective with fellow painting graduates that became known as the Gang of Five and was responsible for leading the development of contemporary art in Vietnam. From 1990 to 1996, the Gang of Five mounted major exhibitions in Hanoi (twice), Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon), London, and Hong Kong, and participated in several international group exhibitions. Previously, they had organized monthly exhibitions in each other’s homes in response to otherwise limited opportunity. Tran Luong has played a critical role in generating support for artists in Vietnam. In 1998 he co-founded Nha San Studio (also known as Nha San Duc), Hanoi’s leading alternative art space, and curated the majority of the exhibitions during its first four years of operation. He co-founded the Hanoi Contemporary Art Centre in 2000, serving as its Director until 2003.
Tran Luong currently serves as Director and co-founder of the Center for Art Patronage and Development (APD). He is also Chair of the Advisory Board of The Resilient Housing Program / Sống Foundation, a member of the Arts Council of the Asian Cultural Council (ACC), New York (since 2019), and an advisory member of the Mekong Cultural Hub (British Council) (since 2017).
In 2004, Luong organized Lim Dim, an international performance art event in Hanoi. (He curated an exhibition with the same title, featuring 16 contemporary artists from Vietnam, for the Stenersen Museum, Oslo, in 2009.) He has participated in numerous performance art festivals including Future of Imagination, Singapore, 2006 and 2012; UP-ON, International Live Art Festival, Chengdu, China, 2008; Beyond Pressure, International Performance Art Festival, Yangon, Myanmar, 2008; Global Warming! Global Warning!!, Perfurbance #4, Mount Merapi, Indonesia, 2008; and Guangzhou Live, China, 2010.
Luong has been the subject of solo exhibitions and has staged solo performances at Tokyo Gallery, 1997; Nha San Studio, Hanoi, 1998, 2000, and 2010; Art in General, New York, 1999; Robert F. Brush Art Gallery, St. Lawrence University, Canton, New York, 2000; Cave Gallery, Brooklyn, 2003; and Goethe Institut, Hanoi, 2004. He is a member of the curatorial team for the 2013 Singapore Biennial, and has participated in notable group exhibitions including Imagined Workshop, Fukuoka Asian Art Triennial, Japan, 2002; Post-Doi Moi: Vietnamese Art After 1990, Singapore Art Museum, 2008; Inward Gazes: Performance Art in Asia, Macau Museum of Art, 2008; Strategies from Within: Vietnamese and Cambodian Contemporary Art, Ke Center, Shanghai, 2008; and Negotiating Home, History and Nation: Two Decades of Contemporary Art in Southeast Asia 1991–2011, Singapore Art Museum, 2011. Luong lives and works in Hanoi.
Hoang Anh (Da Nang/Khanh Hoa, Vietnam), originally a street dancer, currently an independent artist, he uses the body as his primary medium, focusing on dialogues born from his everyday observations. These range from romanticizing daily gestures and conversations to inquiries into identity, or attempts to reimagine phenomena and surreal events he encounters. With an approach that oscillates between instinctive and cautious, he employs his body as a channel to project these reflections through mediums such as performance, video, and conceptual art.
Hoang Anh has participated in various projects and performed/exhibited his works at IN:ACT2022; MUARUA 2023; Month of Art Practice – MAP; No Cai Bum Arts Festival; KULTX Collaborative Space; Nguyễn Art Foundation; Shifting Points program; Djakarta International Theater Platform, among others. He is also a member of the art collectives MORUA, A Song Club, and Cào Cào Collective.
About the curators
Lê Đ. Chung, born in 1990, lives and works in Đắk Nông. With a multidisciplinary practice that includes painting, sculpture, installation, video, and performance, Đ. Chung examines everyday events as well as working with historical and counter-historical narratives. Through this, he explores contradictions and the complexities of ongoing reality, along with the enigmatic descent of unresolved motifs and meanings from the past.
Lại Minh Ngọc is a young curator based in Ho Chi Minh City. Graduated in Social Studies and Art & Media Studies at Fulbright University Vietnam, she is taking small steps in curatorial practice, from which she views artistic practices as a multidimensional approach to social research. Her curatorial work explores the fragments of lingering issues, materiality and spirits woven under structural changes and movements, tracing the politics of representation in moving image work and films. Working across art organization, art festivals and residency programs, Ngọc is interested in bridging artist development with critical engagement with local communities and landscape. She has worked in residency programs in Rare Sea and A. Farm, along with art festivals Nổ Cái Bùm and Dealing in Distance.
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