Tuan Andrew Nguyen
Born & Lives in:
Vietnam
Location
- Chau Chak Wing Museum at the University of Sydney
Tuan Andrew Nguyen’s work explores the power of memory and its potential to act as a form of political resistance. His practice is fuelled by research and a commitment to communities that have faced traumas caused by colonialism, war, and displacement. Through his continuous attempts to engage with vanishing or vanquished historical memory, Nguyen investigates the erasures that the colonial project has brought to bear on certain parts of the world. Through collaborative endeavours with communities throughout the world, Nguyen aims to cultivate and empower these strategies enacted and embodied by his collaborators. This collaborative practice enables Nguyen to explore memory as a form of resistance and empowerment, emphasising the power of storytelling as a means for healing, empathy, and solidarity.
Tuan Andrew Nguyen
Born 1976, Vietnam
Lives and works in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
The Unburied Sounds of a Troubled Horizon 2022
single-channel video, colour, 5.1 surround sound, looped 58 mins
Courtesy of the artist and James Cohan Gallery, New York
Of the five million tonnes of artillery unleashed on Vietnam during the Vietnam War (1954–1975), a total double the amount of ordnance used by the U.S. in World War II – roughly one third – never exploded. The central Vietnamese province of Quảng Trị emerged from the conflict as one of history’s most heavily bombed areas, enduring 40% of the country’s total bombardment. According to active demining organisations in this area, a seemingly limitless number of cluster bombs and other munitions await detonation to this day.
Taking these live remnants as a metaphor for the lingering trauma of the Vietnam War, Tuan Andrew Nguyen’s The Unburied Sounds of a Troubled Horizon follows Nguyet, a scrapyard worker from Quảng Trị, who scavenges and re-sells unexploded ammunition. In this film, salvaged weapons are transformed into hanging sculptures uncannily similar to the work of the late American artist Alexander Calder, who the protagonist may be the reincarnation of. A mediation on the power of material memory, The Unburied Sounds of a Troubled Horizon presents art not as a tool to muffle the shock waves of trauma but to tune them to healing.