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Finest Projects 2024-2025: iii.x_Unrealized Utopia

Posted on 10/04/2025

III.X_UNREALIZED UTOPIA

About project: “iii.x_Unrealized Utopia” was the first solo exhibition by Saigon-based artist Arlette Quỳnh-Anh Trần which presented artworks as transmissions from unrealized futures. Drawing from research on Bauhaus and Vietnam’s nation-building since the 1960s, the exhibition featured diverse media, including paintings, sculptures, videos, and digital collages.

In the “Unrealized Utopia” (2023) painting series, Arlette Quỳnh-Anh Trần collaborated with AI to create architectural and technological structures, reflecting on Third World architecture through internet-generated responses. Another highlighted work was the video Elysium without Shores (2024), produced by blankNegatives studio. This futuristic piece imagined a ritual in the Mekong Delta that culminated in the destruction of hydroelectric dams, critiquing industrialisation and reclaiming derailed modernisation paths.

The works in “iii.x_Unrealized Utopia” followed the acceleration of technology, including artificial intelligence as a means of coordination to move from the past to the future and vice versa, thereby restoring political histories and the possibilities of the present that seemed to have been lost.

Art form: Art exhibition

Duration: 20.09 – 31.10.2024

Organizer: Gallery Medium

Activities: Exhibition, exhibition tours, talks

Hình ảnh từ triển lãm “iii.x_Không Tưởng Mờ”.

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Deadline for voting: 14 Apr 2025

HANOI GRAPEVINE’s FINEST is an annual event that honors contemporary art projects in Vietnam. The event is organized and nominated by Hanoi Grapevine and the general audience.

Entering its 6th year, Hanoi Grapevine’s Finest aims to go beyond an annual honouring event to become a contemporary archive of Vietnam’s art and cultural landscape, as well as a foundational platform to promote interdisciplinary collaborations both domestically and internationally, towards an open, fair, and transparent ecosystem.

This year, Hanoi Grapevine’s Finest 2024-2025 is divided into two major categories: Honouring and Recognition. Nominations are selected based on sets of criteria that aim to highlight the developmental significance and scale of impact, including activity level, community impact, creativity, organisational capability and artistic quality.