”Quỳnh by Night” – Solo Exhibition by Quynh Dong

Opening: Sat 09 Jan 2016, 6.30 pm
Exhibition: 10 Jan – 20 Feb 2016, 10 am – 6 pm from Wed to Sun
Artist talk: Sat 09 Jan 2016, 4.30 pm
Nha San Collective
Performance: Sat 09 Jan 2016, 6 pm
Halls – Hanoi Creative City

From Nha San Collective:

“Quỳnh by night” is the first solo exhibition by the artist Quynh Dong in Vietnam and also the kickoff event for a series of activities organized by Nhà Sàn Collective in the year 2016. In this exhibition, Quynh Dong designs a spectacle with layers upon layers of images, which have the ability to challenge the representation of cultural stereotypes and at the same time creates new perceptions in the most unexpected manner.

Interested in and inspired by the pop culture, Quynh Dong employs the material available in the tropes of the soap operas popular in Asia, the music prevalent in music shows or karaoke establishments, mock decorative miniatures, traditional paintings, common new year calendars, and children toys. Each and everyone of them is duplicated, and layered to construct a hyperspace overblown with cultural motifs that are questionable yet assembled in a harmonic, melancholic, sweet, and naïve way. The audience is hence completely bewildered, constantly shaken as though stranded in between amusement and anxiety. In such artificial and plastic world, the female characters, sometimes embodied by the artist herself, always appear in such typical portrayal that prompts skepticism. Which possibilities coming out of the display of consumerism, of propaganda, of collective memories?

Curator: Truong Que Chi

About the artist:

Quynh Dong was born in Hai Phong, Vietnam in 1982. She studied at Design School in Biel/Bienne, at Bern University of Arts, Zurich University of the Arts and Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam. She recently completed her residency at MMCA Changdong run by National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea in Seoul.

Recent notable exhibition: “When the wind touches yours skin lightly”, Lucie Fontaine, Milan, Italy (2015); “Tears of A Swan”, Kunstraum, Baden, Switzerland (2015); “The Twinkle World”, Deagu, Korea (2015); “BIG OPENING”, Riverside, Bern, Switzerland (2015), “Durch die Blume”, Museum Bellerive, Zurich, Switzerland (2014-2015); “Rijksakademie OPEN 2014”, Amsterdam, Netherlands (2014).

Communication partner: Hanoi Grapevine

Nhà Sàn COLLECTIVE is not a museum, a gallery or an international culture institute where completed work are presented by established artists. Just like Nhà Sàn Studio before, it is a working studio to nurture where artists can create, collaborate, be given advice, critiques, and have chances to meet with international artists, curators. Works that are presented at open studio every month could be finished or not, but the process of developing idea and working to improve the quality of the art work for local artists is what Nhà Sàn COLLECTIVE focuses on.

If you are interested and curious about experimental art, and want to have conversation with the working artists, please visit

Nha San COLLECTIVE 15th floor, Hanoi Creative City Building, 01 Luong Yen, Hanoi Website: https://www.facebook.com/NhaSanCollective Email: [email protected]