Quynh LamVietnam/USA
Song Title: Reo Vang Binh Minh
Song Writer: Luu Huu Phuoc
Performer: Nguyen Mong Ngoc and children’s choir
Archival footage: British Pathé
Mixer + front text: Hanoi Vivu (Do Viet Tuan)
Title of Piece: Betweenessee (2020)
Duration: 2m 25s
Short Description
This video features two spaces presented in parallel: one side filmed in the U.S.; the other excerpted from archival footage taken during the Vietnam War period, of Northern Vietnamese children singing a traditional school song. The video juxtaposes the different spaces in terms of history, culture, and geography, but are also contingently related to my own present circumstances, being from Vietnam and currently stuck in the U.S due to the pandemic. This continues the exploration of time and place in my work, as the nexus of disparate spaces.
Curatorial Note
The way mobile lives have become, one is constantly travelling and switching between places. The pandemic has been quite restrictive and has generated a feeling of unsettlement. The artist was born in Vietnam and lives in the USA, the pangs of not being able to visit her homeland is very potently portrayed through the use of archival footage of Vietnamese school children singing a traditional school song. That is exactly the age that imprints and shapes the cultural belongingness of a place and lets one recon their call back to roots especially when one faces a circumstantial barrier. The form usage of parallel place and time depiction favourably accompanies the thought and feeling.
Biography
Quynh Lam
Quynh Lam is an interdisciplinary artist working in performance, video, installation, and mixed media. In 2017, Quynh received the Fulbright Scholarship to pursue an MFA in Studio Art in the U.S. She was a Riedel fellow at Ragdale Foundation and 2019 Art Future Prize recipient in Taiwan. Quynh has exhibited work in Vietnam and abroad for a decade; some highlights include The Factory Contemporary Arts Center in Ho Chi Minh City, Art Formosa in Taipei, The Vincom Center for Contemporary in Hanoi, Richard Koh Fine Art Gallery in Singapore, and Mana Contemporary. Her works were featured in many publications. Her artbooks have been accessioned to several libraries and other art hubs, notably as a part of the ‘Vietnam Artist Books Project’ of Indochina Arts Partnership, sponsored by the Danish Cultural Development and Exchange Fund. Recently, Quynh presented at the international conference “ReVIEWING Black Mountain College 11”.