media release_day by day_nguyen thi thah mai_sa sa bassac third floor

8/9/2019 Media Release_Day by Day_Nguyen Thi Thah Mai_SA SA BASSAC Third Floor

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Day by Day

by Nguyen Thi Thanh Mai

31 January 7 March, 2015SA SA BASSAC

About the exhibition

Day by Day is an ambitious solo exhibition by Nguyen Thi Thanh Mai, an

internationally award-winning artist based in Hue, Vietnam. The exhibition consists of

four interrelated serial artworks in various media, which draw on one year of extensive

research by the artist in several small fishing communities in Siem Reap and Pursat,

Cambodia as well as in Long An, Vietnam. The men, women and children in these

communities are Vietnamese by birth or by ancestry, but many of them have lived in

Cambodia for years or even for generations. Yet many of them do not hold national ID

Cards from either the Cambodian or Vietnamese government. This lack of formal

identification documents is a source of serious and ongoing difficulties for members ofthese communities.

The title of the exhibition is a phrase the artist borrowed from the villagers. In

her artists statement, the artist Nguyen suggests that the villagers frequent use of

this phrase drew the picture of their future. She describes some challenges faced by

this communityilliteracy, poverty, corruption and briberyand laments that I only

saw children trying to live without any idea about the future, seemingly with no future.

This reality is evoked in Nguyens exhibition. Yet despite having a sense of being

suspended in an uncertain present, here pasts and futures repeatedly emerge, as if

irrepressible. Villagers speak openly of their memories, including experiences of war

and conflict, but never of their dreams.

Day by Day presents a set of circumstances that are highly specific to the

case of Vietnamese in Cambodia, yet also of broader relevance, intersecting with

universal questions of citizenship and migration.

After its debut at SA SA BASSAC, the exhibition will travel to Ho Chi Minh City,

Vietnam, to show at Sao La in the Ho Chi Minh Fine Arts Museum.

The exhibition consists of four interrelated serial works:

1. ID Card (2014) is a participatory installation consisting of over 300 unofficial

identity documents that can be endlessly rearranged. These are printed onscraps of clothing donated to the artist by the villagers.

2. Shadow (2014) is a series of hand-colored digital photographs in which the

human figures have been blacked out, at once protectively obscuring

individuals identities and hinting at the communitys shared uncertainty. This

also foregrounds the striking natural and built environment of floating villages

on Cambodias Tonle Sap lake.

3. Another series of photographic prints, Travels (2014), was commissioned by

Nguyen and produced by a traveling salesperson whose creations are

especially popular in Long An. The images are inexpensively produced digitalcollages: a portrait of the head of various villagers is inserted onto the body of

an unknown stranger, who is pictured posing in a photo studio decorated to


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appear like a faraway land. These works are displayed inside a humble house,

built by two Vietnamese construction workers inside the gallery space, using

palm leaves as in the dwellings in the villages that Nguyen visited.

4. Finally, Day by Day (2014-15) is also the title of a video, in two parts. Day by

Day: In Cambodia is filmed in two villages on the Tonle Sap lake; Day by Day:In Vietnam is filmed in Long An province, in Vietnam near the Cambodian

border. Both films are based in extended interviews with the villagers, in which

they share intimate memories, and speak of their lives.

About the artist

Nguyen Thi Thanh Mai (born 1983, Hanoi) is an artist based in Hue, Vietnam. Her

work in various media is based in intensive and ongoing research, exploring

challenges faced by individuals and communities. The notion of struggle and an

attention to difficult and repressed feelings remain central to my practice, the artist

explains.

Nguyens previous exhibitions include Swimming in Sand; Growing Rice Under

an Umbrella (Anita Archer Fine Art, Melbourne, Australia, 2014); Unexpected (Chiang

Mai University Museum, 2014); 2013 Asian Report (Artspace A Gallery, Cheongju,

South Korea, 2013); and Riverscapes IN FLUX(Goethe Institut, Vietnam, Thailand,

Myanmar, Philippines, Indonesia, 2012).

Nguyen has undertaken residencies at Sa Sa Art Projects, Phnom Penh

(2014); HIVE Studio, Cheongju, South Korea (2013); New Space Arts Foundation,

Hue, Vietnam (2013) and Sn Art, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam (2012). In 2015 she will

commence a 12-month residency at Kunstlerhaus Bethanien, in Berlin, Germany.

Nguyen is a recipient of awards and grants from the Pollock-Krasner

Foundation (2014-15) and the Cultural Development and Exchange Fund (2014 and

2012). In 2015 she is a finalist for the Sovereign Asian Art Prize, to be exhibited in

Hong Kong.

The artist holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Hue College of the Arts, Vietnam

(2006) and a Master of Visual Arts from Mahasarakham University, Thailand (2012).

Day by Day is her first solo exhibition at SA SA BASSAC.

About the curator

Day by Day is guest-curated by Roger Nelson, an independent curator based in

Phnom Penh, and a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne researching

contemporary and modern Cambodian art and culture. Nelson publishes

internationally on Southeast Asian contemporary art, including in ArtAsiaPacific;

Artlink; Contemporaneity: Historical Presence in Visual Culture; Udaya: Journal of

Khmer Studies; and Randian.Recent catalogue essays include Pinaree Sanpitak at

Yavuz Fine Art, Singapore (2014); Khvay Samnang at Tomio Koyama Gallery,

Singapore (2014); and Khvay Samnang at Taipeis Asian Art Biennial(co-authored

with Erin Gleeson, 2013). Roger recently spoke on performance in Cambodian art at

New Yorks Museum of Modern Art (2013), and in 2014 and 2015 is working on

curatorial projects in Cambodia, Australia, Singapore, Thailand, the United Kingdom,and Vietnam. In 2015-6 he joins Ambitious Alignments: New Histories of Southeast

Asian Art, a research initiative of the Getty Foundation and University of Sydney. He


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has previously curated one group exhibition at SA SA BASSAC, titled new artefacts

(2012).

About SA SA BASSAC Third Floor

SA SA BASSAC is a gallery and resource center, established in 2011,dedicated to creating, facilitating, producing, and sharing contemporary visual culture

in and from Cambodia.

The exhibition Day by Day launches the Third Floor, a new space above SA

SA BASSACs gallery. In coming months, this space will be transformed into a reading

and learning room, shared working areas, and other flexible space. For Day by Day,

however, the space is preserved as it was previously: a rooftop converted into a wood

workshop built of timber, rattan and concrete.

Public programs

Day by Day, the exhibition, will be accompanied by a dynamic series of publicprograms engaging diverse communities in Phnom Penh. These will include:

- an artists talk at 5pm on 31 January 2015

- school visits

- university student visits

- offsite screenings

- a full color catalogue in Khmer, Vietnamese and English including an artists

statement and an essay by the curator.

Media conference

SA SA BASSAC is pleased to invite all journalists to an exclusive preview ofDay by Day, including a media conference in the gallery space, on Thursday 29

January at 10am. The artist and curator will be present and available to answer

questions in English.

Please RSVP by Tuesday 27 January to [email protected] if you wish to

attend this media conference.

Please note that no interviews will be granted other than at this media

conference.

Contacts and inquiries

Moeng Meta, Community Projects Manager, SA SA BASSAC

012 768 672

[email protected]

Roger Nelson, guest curator of Day by Day

017 508 926

[email protected]

Erin Gleeson, Artistic Director, SA SA BASSAC

[email protected]


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Nguyen Thi Thanh Mai, Travels, 2014. Digital print of digital collage.

Nguyen Thi Thanh Mai, Travels, 2014. Digital print of digital collage.


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Nguyen Thi Thanh Mai, Shadow, 2014. Ink on digital C print.

Nguyen Thi Thanh Mai, ID Card, 2014 (detail). Participatory installation comprising348 transfer prints on found fabric.

media release_day by day_nguyen thi thah mai_sa sa bassac third floor

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