Vietnam Art Collection (VAC) is pleased to announce peace is a white room, a group exhibition featuring four Saigon-based artists, Mai Tạ, Nhi Lê, Mr.Bambii, and Liên Phạm. Initiated by Mai Tạ, this residency project sets out as her personal response to the vibrant creative community in Saigon and the complexities of the ever-changing social environment in Vietnam and beyond. A culmination of their two-month residency at VAC Hanoi, this exhibition will showcase each artist’s

individual practice in dialogue with one another, as well as two collaborative works from Mai Tạ & Mr.Bambii and Mai Tạ & Nhi Lê.

Upon graduating from the School of Visual Arts in New York in 2019, Mai Tạ has been known for her soul-touching paintings that portray the interiority of herself and the world. If the artist initially focused on her studio practice as a painter only, she now aspires to explore the intricacies of her country’s history, as well as the narratives that shape its identity. No longer bound by the limits of painting, Mai Tạ wants to initiate a collective reflection on what it means to hold faith - whether in gods, art, or people. Fortunately, she has three close friends whose unconventional art practices ponder the same.

When studying studio art in Florence, Nhi Lê found herself enchanted once practicing performance art inside a church-like structure - her very first performance piece. Ever since then, she has sought to explore notions of spirituality and challenge the spectacle through performance art as a language of thinking and expression. During this residency, Mai Tạ & Nhi Lê collaborated on making an experimental short film. What started out as a search for forms of prayer within Vietnamese spirituality has become a collection of long performances, attempting to reconcile the inherent tension between morality and humanity. Titled Breathing Ground, Moaning God, this silent film unfolds through four scenes of subtle, tender movements directed and performed by both artists.

Self-taught and non-conformist, Mr.Bambii is a natural creative. Always finding a way for his poetry to flourish, he settled on wax as a sculpting material after years of experimentation. Pure, innocent, and soft, the colorless transparent wax holds up his poems like skin to the body. Firing it from solid to fluid, only to solidify once again, he melts the thoughts and words from their intangible origin into eternity. For this residency, Mai Tạ & Mr.Bambii combine their works into one - casting gouache-on-paper paintings with wax, building monuments for the secrecy within.

Liên Phạm returned to Saigon in 2021 after receiving her BFA from Tufts University. In September 2022, she and four other artist friends founded 3Năm Studio, a sometimes-public gathering place of art laboring and living, its name a tongue-in-cheek reference to their temporary nature. In response to a recent family incident, Liên’s latest body of work is an installation that includes video art, photography, and her father’s poetry, among other found objects. This collection of mementos and whispers questions the relationship between a father and his daughter while contemplating the absurdity of bureaucracy and incarceration.

This is the second edition of the VAC Residency Hanoi. Fully funded by the Vietnam Art Collection (VAC), VAC Residency Hanoi is part of the LAUNCH program specifically designed to support artists and cultural practitioners in Vietnam. Starting in April 2024, VAC's residency program aims to encourage artists and creatives in/from Vietnam to experiment with mediums, materials, and ideas new to their existing practices and explore across disciplines. Throughout the three-month residency, artists become the hosts and are encouraged to invite guest artists for collaboration. The program offers curatorial and network support, assists project development, and facilitates exchanges beyond borders. Based on the idea of a collaborative studio, our space in Hanoi serves as a hub for artistic production, communal activities, and public programs.

Opening reception: 9 Nov., Saturday, 4-6 pm

Exhibition: 11 Nov - 20 Dec, 2024

Everyday, 10 am - 6 pm

vac hanoi, 6/44/11 to ngoc van, tay ho

free admission