Before 86
This year, my daughter is 11 years old. This was our age in 1986, a milestone with regard to our country’s renovation campaign.
After 26 long years, we reminisce bout the misery, difficulties, hardships and change before renovation. These seem like cracks of time appearing and transforming constantly…as is the process of a functioning human organism.
These memories take us back to our past, to everyone’s past, and to our country’s, to inquire what really happened? We are still wondering how bitterness, disgrace, happiness, joys…have come and have passed or how they are deeply imprinted in our hearts.
Looking back to the past, to the way we behaved in the past, is a way of growing up, of maturing. It is also a way to understand the struggles we have gone through for a better life.
We keep thinking about the landmark of 1975, the year that we were born; it was also the year that the Vietnamese people burst into tears and laughters or even silent separation for their whole country’s unification.
We cannot stop wondering about bombs, weapons, separation, life and death … also about the way that the Vietnamese have behaved towards each other since this historical event.
We are tormented by the question of what my daughter would do in another 26 years when she is our age today. What would she remember of this
2012 period? Would she wonder about the renovation time in 1986? Whether or not she still care about the period of 1975? How would she grow up without those historical traces in the souls of all Vietnamese people?
Our art project, “Before 86”, shows our respect, in our work and lives as artists, for our past. We are reminding our dearest daughter of her native Vietnamese origins, with all its ups and downs. We are trying to nourish her soul by looking back on our past with sympathy and with love.
Video arts, Photos + Installation arts.
Two uniforms of the South Vietnamese Army and the North Vietnamese Army
From before 1975 are cut and carved in conventional formulaic style and reassembled together, alternating and exchanging parts based on “Ying-Yang” rules. These uniforms are displayed with other Video Arts recording our images; two separate individuals are looking forward to concordance.
We mean to present our point of view about the Vietnam War before 1975.
Two uniforms iconically indicate their opposition. They are cut and carved with symbols such as bullets, flowers, helicopters, and guns … these symbols are cut off from one uniform, and then sewed onto the other one and vice-versa. The blending of these pieces sewed onto the two uniforms eventually makes these uniforms become impressively and totally mixed together.
Although their shapes are maintained, signs and colors will change because of their interweaving. Consequently, this inspires a harmony of visual expression. We see them as our wish for accordance, an expression of our thoughts of healing and connection.
Press
Oil Painting Series (all 140cm x 140cm dimension)
These oil paintings are inspired from old photographs (taken before 1986) of our relatives, friends, volunteers … from all over our country, dismissing whether they are of South or North Vietnamese origins, some even taken before 1975.
Almost all the photographs were taken in black and white before 1986 and were of similar technique, in terms of style and design, image and light processes … they represent a portrait of one period of time, showing that the majority of people have the same insight, the same aesthetic essence, or the same thoughts. This was one of the specific characteristics of our people before the period of renovation. All values were firmly formed by a common denominator.
By transforming these photographs into oil paintings, including their variables and identities within, we once again repeat those limits, those boundaries that occur in every field of life, especially in culture and art before 1986. Again, we positively affirm and demonstrate our respect for our country’s flourishing achievements brought by visual art since 1986.
Despite its inadequacies, Vietnamese art is truly awakening after a very long period spent asleep. Vietnamese art has begun to contribute to and to be integrated into the world’s contemporary art.
