A second installation exhibition by Nguyen Phuong Linh called ‘Dust’ today opens at Galerie Quynh in District 1 featuring the artist’s latest body of work.

She examines the traces of personal and collective memories and histories. Tied to the history of a given object or place, dust often collects on forgotten and disused objects. Her works allude to the past, blurring deeply personal memories and national history.

The artist’s Dust Project, originally shown at the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum during the artist’s residency last year, includes an array of small vials containing dust collected from various objects and different sites in Vietnam, Japan and Korea: a portrait of Ho Chi Minh, a relative’s altar, bridges from three nations, cracks in destroyed homes caused by natural disasters, graves of soldiers, churches and numerous other sites that have been ruined or forgotten. Images of these sites documented through beautiful, muted blueprints – a printing method that is becoming obsolete with new technology – accompany the delicate vials of dust.

In her ‘Whitescape’ with pristine white dust, comprising two tons of white limestone powder, visitors will see the work appear like a stark, ethereal landscape in which, limestone, formed by the skeletons of billions of marine animals over millions of years, is mined throughout the world for construction and agricultural purposes and the limestone powder brings to mind mortality, destruction, renewal and change.

The small peaks in the landscape will slowly morph and erode throughout the course of the exhibition.

Steeped in the artist’s personal memories of Hanoi, the last work consists of three compressed cubes of rubber, soap and tobacco widely consumed by both the Vietnamese working and middle-classes.

Inspired by Yellow Star Rubber Factory, Hanoi Soap Factory and Thang Long Tobacco Factory, three prominent companies established in the 50s and 60s in Hanoi that proudly marked Vietnam’s ability to produce light industrial products for the first time, the dense cubes sit on iron stands, strong and stoic, like totems of economic power.

Born in 1985 in Hanoi where she is also based, Linh has joined exhibitions in Thailand, Korea, India and the U.S.

The show runs to July 5 at the gallery, 65 De Tham Street in District 1.

Below are some works at Dust exhibition:



SGT/Dan Tri