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Tươi Sống!
(Fresh and alive)
Private View: 15th July 2024 6-9pm
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The exhibition brings together four artists from the Vietnamese diaspora, based between London and Paris. Using the metaphor of aquariums found in Vietnamese seafood restaurants, the artists immersed themselves in the fishbowl that is the confined space of the gallery, to explore themes of identity and of the simulacrum.
These aquariums found in restaurants in Europe or America, emblematic of popular restaurants, often feature colour-saturated miniatures depicting typically Vietnamese landscapes such as mountains and pagodas. These elements of traditional culture permeate even packaging of Vietnamese products, thus adopting a pop dimension.
The artists are both fascinated and troubled by this excessive proliferation of pop culture, both in Vietnam and in the contemporary diaspora. The exhibition, steeped in artifice and simulacra, delves into the capitalist evasion spirit of this kitsch imagery. The viewer feels trapped, « fish-tanked », their gaze caught between voyeuristic curiosity and a sense of wonder.
Anh-Phuong Nguyen — also known as AP Nguyen (b. 1999, Vietnam), lives in London and works between the UK and Vietnam. Nguyen’s multi-disciplinary practice explores the prevailing cliches associated with the architecture, object-hood and personification of tourism and hospitality in parallel to land excavation, extraction and subsequent artificiality. Working across sculpture, installation and video, whilst navigating the realms of high and low art, humour and seriousness, she sheds light on the intricate narratives of desire undergirding souvenir objects and the construction of fantasy worlds and characters for foreign consumption.
Recent solo exhibition: Lovecore, Hanoi (2021). Selected group exhibitions include: Means of Production, Lunch Hour Collective, New York (2024), Beauty Tech Art Spa, Cornershop London (2023), Dentro, Somers Gallery, (2023), No Place Like Home Part II (A Vietnamese Exhibition), Museum of the Home, London (2023), Baggage Claim, Staffordshire St, London (2023). Upcoming duo exhibition: Back in 10, APT Gallery (June 2024). 2023 recipient of the APT x Fenton Arts Trust Mentoring Award.
Hoa Dung Clerget (b. 1985, France) lives and works in London. She creates installations and objects that delve into the labour of immigrant women, the Nail Art subculture, and the micro-societies found in nail salons. Her work explores the popular and kitschy aesthetic of Nail Art and oriental objects, revealing all the ambiguity present in the gaze, taste, and notion of exoticisation.
Recent solo exhibition: Durian Revolution, Studio Chapple, London (2023). Recent group exhibitions include: Beauty Tech Art Spa, Cornershop, London (2023), Positions, Alma Pearl, London (2023), The Expanse in-between, Grove Collective, London (2022); Un/Sense, Christie’s, London (2022); Paradise, Harlesden High Street, Lecce, Italy (2022), Mothering, Kupfer Project, London (2022)
Trâm Nguyễn - vinacringe Also known as vinacringe is an artistic alter ego whose practice is a love letter to vietnamese diasporic culture and camp mother religion spirituality. Inspired by the ‘vina’ brand of all things from household to obscure (vinahouse, vinagame, vinatrans, vinamilk), their work explores the alleys of cringe in Vietnamese culture where it intersects with performance, queerness, spirituality and its tension with the western institutional setting.it’s mostly a parody of being alive and inhabiting a body.
Minh Lan Tran (b. 1997, Hong Kong) Minh Lan Tran's practice encompasses painting, writing, and performance, exploring the interplay and resistance between language, movement, and matter. Beginning with calligraphy, writing forms an important foundation of her artistic process. Embracing the principles of choreography, Tran carefully distributes different intensities, resulting in compositions that embody the fluidity of physicality. Rooted in diverse traditions and histories, her art addresses themes of social unrest and channels spiritual-political expressions of protest, including self-immolations. Through the convergence of these elements, the artist prioritizes embodiment over representation.
Her works have been exhibited at venues including Harlesden High Street, London; the Museum of the Home, London; the Royal College of Art, London; the House of Annetta, London and Jan Kaps, Germany. She studied Art History at the Ecole du Louvre, Paris and the University of Oxford. She holds an MA in Byzantine studies and visual theology from the Courtauld Institute of Art, London (2020) and an MA in Painting from The Royal College of Art, London (2023).