A few words about Nguyễn Thị Diệp’s #SoloMarathon2023 no.1 coming up this July, accompanied by guest curator Lê Thuận Uyên:
Although Nguyễn Thị Diệp’s artistic practice has already begun a while ago, audience may not see her appearance much until recently, when Diệp actively participated in many performance art events and collaborated with different art spaces including APD, Babau-AIR, Hay Là and Á Space in their various projects, workshops and group exhibitions. Despite her quite orthodoxical entry into the arts (having attended Vietnam Fine Arts University, and participated in a few group exhibitions), Diệp experienced a period of “slowing down” due to other occupations in her personal life. This period brought her a lot of gleanings about everyday life and activities, as much as current popular folksy aesthetics in Vietnam. Dwelling on visual details brimming with cold and sensual sensibility, Diệp contemplates upon the romance and realism in rural culture and the boundary between precarity and stability in life. In her #SoloMarathon2023 upcoming residency, Á Space and our guest curator Lê Thuận Uyên wish to accompany and create a space to support Nguyễn Thị Diệp’s artistic journey.

Diệp shared

“This project is an opportunity for me to show fragments of my observations from 2016 to now. I am quite interested in plastic and white objects in popular life in Vietnam during this period. These materials are both shiny and inert and cheap. For example, white towels made of nylon fabric, cold white ceramic bowls in the joyful gatherings…; Styrofoam boxes, fruit-wrapped nets popular in the wet market or the glossy white color of shrimp puffs. I pay attention to the angles, how the details are arranged in the events of weddings, openings, longevity ceremonies. The images appearing on such objects carry the romantic realistic colors of popular culture. Finally, I got a lot of inspiration from the image of a thick, semi-solid condensed milk line of “Ông Thọ” condensed milk – a very popular industrial product, associated with the birth of Vinamilk (since 1976). In the next showcase, I want to focus on working with these observations and present some works in different forms such as drawing, installation, and performance.”

 

Nguyễn Thị Diệp graduated from Vietnam University of Fine Art. Her art practice officially started with her participation in Young Fine Arts Festival 2011. In 2021, Diệp began experimenting more with other artistic languages such as video art and performance art. Her art often concerns with simplicity in everyday life and takes root in her honest and humble experiences. Her most recent art projects and exhibitions she participated include: ‘Heart on the margins’ (Manzi Art Space, 2023); various performance art workshops (Hay Là & APD, 2022-23); ‘Một câu đựng trời trong cơi đựng trầu’ (Vietnam Woman’s Museum, 2022); IN:ACT 2022 (Nhà Sàn Collective & Á Space, 2022); ‘Morning – Noon – Afternoon – Evening’ (Á Space, 2022); ‘Đèn kéo quân’ (APD, 2022); ‘Till later letters’ (Á Space, 2022).
Lê Thuận Uyên is currently Curator/Artistic Director of The Outpost – a Hanoi based private organisation committed to the collection, presentation, and discussion of contemporary art in Vietnam. Informed by her former training in politicial science, Uyen is interested in alternative histories, personal narratives that are rendered absent or undesirable by the official record. Her practice is also concerned with the investigations of forms and ideas within the social context and aesthetic traditions of Vietnam. Uyên is also a keen advocate for integrating art experiences into the universal educational system, as well as building capacity for the Vietnamese art landscape. Some of her past curatorial projects include: Fractured Times (The Outpost, Hanoi, 2022); Domestic Bliss (Ilham Gallery, KL, 2019); Gang of Five Chancing Modern (Hanoi, 2017); Sindikat Campursari (Jakarta, 2016);…