Tomorrow, Nhà Sàn Collective will open Cảm Xạ Từ Xa/ Remote Viewing – the first solo exhibition in Việt Nam by the Vietnamese-born German artist Sung Tiêu.

Remote Viewing traces the shifting relevance of oral stories and spiritual rituals in historical and contemporary Việt Nam. After several visits to Hà Nội, Huế and HCM City from 2015 to 2017, the London-based artist’s forthcoming exhibition investigates how Việt Nam’s nationhood is shaped through tales, colonialism, war and the global market economy.

Tiêu was born in North Việt Nam in 1986, part of the generation that came of age after the war during the đổi mới (policy renewal). Then raised in Germany after its reunification in 1989, Tiêu’s artistic practice has been in constant negotiation, not just in terms of geography but also between the past and the present, the fictional and non-fictional, the rational and the spiritual.

Combining documentary footage and folktales from the Bà Đen (Black Virgin) mountain in the southern province of Tây Ninh, and Mỏ Cày in the southern province of Bến Tre, Remote Viewing examines the layered historical resonance of places and their stories.

The exhibition, which is supported by the Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations (Institut fur Auslandsbeziehungen) in Stuttgart, Germany, will open to the public Wednesdays through Sundays from September 9 to 23, from 3-7pm.

An artist talk will follow the opening, at 7.30pm tomorrow. Nhà Sàn Collective is on the 15th floor of the Hanoi Creative City Building, 1 Lương Yên Street, Hai Bà Trưng District. — VNS