Video Journey to Vietnam

A video journey around the world.

In collaboration with art centers and other related institutions from around the world, we will introduce video works by artists from around the world.

The 2nd Video Journey will be held as a video exchange program with “Sàn Art,” an art organization based in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Video works by Vietnamese artists in Kyoto and Kyoto artists in Vietnam will be screened respectively.

Kyoto Art Center will present seven video works by five artists.
Nguyen Trinh Chi questions the disconnect between individual and collective history by juxtaposing films and videos depicting Vietnamese history with personal history. Xuan Ha’s work is inspired by the “ferryman” who collects information on the graves of those who lost their lives fighting for national liberation and connects them with the bereaved families. Lena Bui examines the representation of “nature” in video works set in Vietnam and asks questions about the consumption of visual images in contemporary society. Nguyen Hoang Giang examines how new technology affects people in contemporary society. Phan Anh’s work is a story of the artist’s own childhood memories and post-growth reality, composed as a narrative in which reality and fiction intersect.
We hope you enjoy these video works that reflect the “now” of people living in Vietnam.

<Video Work List>
Nguyen Trinh Thi
Everyday’s the Seventies. 2018. 15 min 25 sec.
Xuân-Hạ
A Ferry Man.  2021. 26min
Lena Bui.
Light  2024. 2 min 53 sec
Precious. Rare. For sale.  2023 12 min 40 sec. 
Nguyen Hoang Giang
Il Provino (The Audition) 2023 15 min 19 sec.
Human Learning  2021.  13 min 19 sec.
Phan Anh
Confronting oneself in the state of presence. 2016-2017 16 min 23 sec.

<Artist>
Nguyen Trinh Thi
b. 1973. Hanoi, Vietnam.
Website: https://nguyentrinhthi.wordpress.com
Nguyen Trinh Thi is a filmmaker and artist from Vietnam. Nguyen Trinh Thi’s work delves into the relationships between memory, history, representation, power structures, the legacies of colonialism and war, and the erasure of indigenous Vietnamese cultures. Using a montage technique, she is a pioneer of the moving image medium in Vietnam and incorporates found footage, still images from postcards, photography, newsreels, Hollywood films, and ethnographic footage, alongside her own audio and visual recordings. This convergence of diverse media creates a sense of multiplicity, exploring how we perceive and create images, as well as what remains unshown, unsaid, or unheard. 
In 2009, Nguyễn Trinh Thi founded and directed Hanoi DocLab, an educational centre and production studio aimed at nurturing a new generation of independent Vietnamese filmmakers and video artists, while also building an audience for documentary films. Her work and films have been featured at prominent festivals and exhibitions such as Documenta, Artes Mundi, the Oberhausen Short Film Festival, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, 9th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, the Singapore Biennale, the Thailand Biennale, the Biennale of Sydney, the Mori Art Museum, and the Singapore Art Museum, amongst others. She is the recipient of the 2024 Prince Claus Impact Awards. 

Xuân-Hạ
b. 1993. Danang, Vietnam. 
https://www.anotherxuanha.com
Xuân-Hạ is an interdisciplinary artist and community worker currently based in Da Nang, Vietnam. Xuân-Hạ’s artistic practice is profoundly anchored in the investigation of micro-histories and marginalized personal narratives, which are often erased or rendered invisible in dominant discourses. Her research critically examines socio-cultural transformations and migratory patterns, with a particular focus on the ecological consequences and the shifting identities of indigenous communities. Through a multidisciplinary approach that integrates video, installation, conceptual art and community-oriented practices, she reconfigures personal experiences into visual narratives. Her work thus creates a discursive space that interrogates the fluidity of identity, the impermanence of place, and the fragility of cultural continuity in the face of environmental and social upheaval. Besides working as an artist, Xuân-Hạ also plays an active role in building and expanding the local art community. She is a co-founder of the art collective Chaosdowntown Cháo (Ho Chi Minh City, 2015-2019) and more recently, the founder and artistic director of A Sông (Danang, 2019-present). Through her artistic activities in Central Vietnam, she aims to establish a platform for emerging artists to engage with social issues and foster critical thinking in their artistic practices.

Lena Bui.
b. 1985. Vietnam.
https://www.lenabui.com
Lena Bui graduated from Wesleyan University in 2007 with a BA in East Asian Studies and has lived and worked in Saigon since 2009. Her works are both amusing anecdotes and in-depth articulations of the impact of rapid development on people’s relationship with nature and their surroundings. She reflects on ways that intangible aspects of life, such as faith, death and dreams, influence behaviour and perception. She often relies on drawing, painting and video but is open to whatever medium she perceives as appropriate to a work. Recent exhibitions include ‘Blue Filaments’ (Galerie BAQ, Paris, France, 2024); ‘Nurture Gaia’ (Bangkok Art Biennale, Bangkok, Thailand, 2024);  ‘In Absence, Presence, Nguyen Art Foundation, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam);  ‘Cyphering, Vibrating, Emanating’ (Delfina Foundation, London, UK, 2023); ‘Monographs’ (Asian Film Archive, Oldham Theatre Foyer, Singapore, 2023); ‘Flowing Moon Embracing Land’ (Jeju Biennale, South Korea, 2022); and ‘Posthuman Ensemble’ (Asia Culture Center, Gwangju, South Korea, 2021).

Nguyen Hoang Giang
b.1989, Hanoi. 
https://gianggg.giang.it 
Nguyen Hoang Giang currently lives and works in Ho Chi Minh City. His works are multimedia, with a focus on the social and cultural impacts of new technologies. His interests lie in failures in the relationship between human and machine, specifically in the process of learning. His works have been shown internationally at various exhibitions, residencies, galleries, and museums such as Museo del ‘900 (IT), Asian Culture Complex (KR), Galerie Nord/Kunstverein Tiergarten (DE), ViaFarini (IT), MartinGoya Business (CN), Galerie Quynh (VN), Nha San Collective (VN). Beside artistic practices, he runs curatorial and educational projects such as Net Fluxists (2021), In_ur_scr! (2016). Since 2020, he has lectured at the Digital Media department of RMIT University Vietnam. 

Phan Anh. 
b. 1990. Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
Website:https://phananh.space 
Phan Anh is a multidisciplinary artist based in Saigon, Vietnam. He graduated from the Ho Chi Minh University of Fine Arts in 2013 and later received his M.A from Utrecht School of the Arts in the Netherlands in 2015. In 2017, he co-established a self-funded collective called Đường Chạy for practitioners who have not received much recognition and support from educational institutions or the general art community. That same year, he received the Grand Prize of the Dogma Prize for contemporary portraiture. Phan Anh’s works often involve videos and installations with the help of other archival methods such as drawing, writing, and assembling found objects and images. They contain intense experimentations on the image’s performative construction, aim to advocate freedom of thought, research and expression through the act of challenging established narratives, while exploring possible discourses of political, social and historical events. Recent exhibitions and screenings include ‘ Saigon Experimental Film Festival V’ (VanLang University, Hanoi, Vietnam, 2024); ‘ in flux: Revisiting media in Vietnamese-based video art’ (TRA-TRAVEL & JUU, Osaka, Japan, 2024); ‘Pixelating families: Photography as Material for Filmic (Re)Inquiries’ (Sàn Art, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, 2023); ‘Walk-in Cinema: Glad we made it on time’ (Salt Beyoğlu, Istanbul, Turkey, and Sàn Art, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, in collaboration with the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, USA, 2022); ‘Remnants’ (Sàn Art, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, 2022); ‘M.A.P Month of Arts Practice’ (Heritage Space, Hanoi, Vietnam, 2020); ‘Le Voyage dans l’Imaginaire’ (bottomspace, Guangzhou, China, 2019); ‘Singing to the Choirs?’, (The Factory Contemporary Arts Centre, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, 2019); ‘The Foliage 3’, (VCCA, Hanoi, Vietnam); ‘The Museum of the Mind’ solo exhibition (Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, 2018); and ‘ACC Arts Space Network Residency’ (Gwanju, South Korea, 2018).

About Sàn Art:
Founded in 2007 in Ho Chi Minh City as an artist-led platform, Sàn Art has since grown into a leading independent arts organisation in Vietnam and the region. Maintaining a commitment to grassroots support for local and international artists and cultural work, Sàn Art is also a site for critical discourse with regular educational initiatives. Aside from our exhibition programmes, Sàn Art’s past projects include the artist-residency Sàn Art Laboratory (2012-2015) and Conscious Realities (2013-2016), a series of publications and events, inviting writers, artists, thinkers and cultural workers with a focus on the Global South. In 2018, Sàn Art launched Uncommon Pursuits, a curatorial training school, and a new gallery with a focus on dialogues between modern and contemporary art in Vietnam and the region. That same year it also launched A. Farm (2018-2020), an international artist residency programme co-founded with MoT+++ and the Nguyen Art Foundation.
Opening a new chapter in the organisation’s history, Sàn Art is expanding as a community hub to support and foster innovative and experimental practices and perspectives.
Website: san-art.co