Nguyen Art Foundation (NAF) cordially invites you to the opening of the group exhibition The year is XXXX, curated by Thái Hà, featuring artists Quynh Dong, Nguyen Phuong Linh, Thao Nguyen Phan, and Danh Vo. The exhibition will take place simultaneously across the campuses of EMASI Nam Long (District 7) and EMASI Van Phuc (Thu Duc City) from April 2025 to November 2025.
Opening reception: 6:30 PM, 24 April 2025
Location: EMASI Nam Long – No. 147, Street no. 8, Nam Long Residential Area, D7, HCMC
Exhibition duration: April 2025 – November 2025
Exhibition locations: EMASI Nam Long – No. 147, Street no. 8, Nam Long Residential Area, D7, HCMC
EMASI Van Phuc – No. 2, Street no. 5, Van Phuc Residential Area, Thu Duc, HCMC
The exhibition The year is XXXX reconsiders colonial-era travelogues about Indochina, originally recorded by Western missionaries and voyagers. Rather than continuing the conventional perspective—where "exotic lands" serve merely as backdrops for foreign discovery—this exhibition proposes a reversed spectacle: the lands and local inhabitants become the subjects, casting their eyes back at those who once wrote about them.
The exhibition follows the adventures of a young girl who wakes and sleeps, and each time waking finds herself in a different stratum of reality. The exhibition essay, written under the guise of an adventure tale, borrows from the folklore traditions of East and Southeast Asia, as well as translations of giang hồ – 江湖 adventures – of outcast protagonists finding kinship among fellow exiles. Though seemingly innocuous, giang hồ fiction was crucial in helping Vietnamese intellectuals spread anti-colonial sentiments and revolutionary proposals for independence. Delving into the tropes of the genre, The year is XXXX, which explores how adventure is used to invent fantastical fictions of foreign lands and as a strategy of escape from colonial subjugation.
The exhibition starts at EMASI Nam Long (District 7) with Trùng mù – Endless, sightless by Nguyen Phuong Linh. Centered around the Central Highlands, her works entwine past and present, retracing the travels of bacteriologist and explorer Alexandre Yersin to the region, and delving into its current geopolitics. In colonial Indochina, as in the present day, the exploitation of the Highlands is laid bare in exhibition rooms. In subtle yet significant appearances, the works of Thao Nguyen Phan and Danh Vo ground Phuong Linh’s installation in the perspective of strangers in a foreign land. The protagonist and the viewers are lured into Phuong Linh’s entrancing landscape, only to be reminded that they can pass through but never stay.
As the journey continues to EMASI Van Phuc (Thu Duc), the exhibition transitions into Gently Floating Away by Quynh Dong. Here, the artist bootlegs the art of painters trained at l’École des Beaux-Arts de l’Indochine, recomposing them as moving images. But instead of remaining static, these images are animated, engulfing the space. In one work, giant, fluorescent lotuses stand static in the rain, plunging the viewer into a time-cancelled dimension. In another, Butoh dancers stand in for fish and sea waves, their uncanny movements and costumes disrupting the water’s fragile calm. Quynh Đong reinterprets the colloquial terminology of “chim, hoa, cá, gái” (birds, flowers, fish, women) which refers to icons of Vietnamese art and, by extension, Vietnamese-ness – once Orientalist tropes consumed by the West – but with a satirical approach, transforming them from passive subjects into active voices.
What sets The year is XXXX apart is its continuously evolving nature. Unlike conventional exhibitions curated by a single curator, every six weeks, within an open space at EMASI Van Phuc, guest curators from around the world will take turns curating works from Nguyen Art Foundation's collection, offering new visual interpretations that further expand the protagonist’s adventure. Through her journey, the exhibition invites audiences to explore how places assert their presence through their rhythms, transcending the fictional projections of outsiders.
The exhibition opens at EMASI Nam Long on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays from 10 AM – 4 PM, and at EMASI Van Phuc on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays from 10 AM – 4 PM (last entry at 3:30 PM).
Visits are by appointment only via info@nguyenartfoundation.com or our Facebook page Nguyen Art Foundation.
