Video Installation at Goethe Institut

Opening: Sat 10 Sep, 4 pm
Exhibition: 11 – 13 Sep 2011, 9 am – 7 pm
Goethe

From Goethe Institut:
You are invited to the exhibition To the place where we want to forget. The video installation by the young artist Truong Que Chi takes visitors to a place where memories of an unpleasant past can be left behind, where the burdens of the soul can be lifted. Based on the structure of a confessional, Truong has almost completely blacked out the exhibition space of the video installation. In addition, the doors and windows of the black plastic-lined space have been covered with black curtains, so that visitors entering and leaving the room must push the black cloth aside, as in a confessional.

This particular configuration of the room centers the focus on the video installation. Videos are played on multiple screens, showing dialogs with different people, including among others, veterans, school children and artists. Anonymized, so the visitor does not know which person is speaking, the subjects talk about their different memories, memories they would prefer to forget and that, verbalized, can now be left behind in the space. The exhibition space functions in this sense as a sort of black box of the soul. The dialogues of the confessing speakers are meant to be understood on a personal level, but also give the visitor the possibility of a more general understanding. Through To the place where we want to forget the visitor interacts with the work of the artist as well as with the speakers.

Truong Que Chi was born in 1987 in Hanoi and graduated from the University of Lyon (France) with a degree in film studies. She became well-known in Hanoi with her collection of poems “I am growing old” which she published at age 18. Truong won the first prize in the 2007 poetry contest “One thousand years in love of Thang Long”. She also has participated in many poetry lectures. To the place where we want to forget is the first video installation by Truong Que Chi.

Free admission.