11th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

Elements from the mixed-media installation Khu Vườn Lạc Hướng ( A disoriented garden ) 2023–ongoing installed in the artist’s studio in Hồ Chí Minh City, 2022 Khu Vườn Lạc Hướng ( A disoriented garden ) 2023–ongoing considers the poetic and geopolitical possibilities of gardens. This site-responsive, mixed-media installation by Trương Công Tùng invites viewers to meander through a world comprising both natural and human-made elements. Trương Công Tùng grew up in Đăk Lăk, in the Central Highlands of Việt Nam, an area known for its various ethnic minorities with distinct cultures, histories, traditions and beliefs. His practice is informed by his engagement with the Jrai people of this region, whose customary beliefs and spiritual practices are grounded in nature. He is also interested in the way the Jrai’s makeshift farming methods, unchanged for generations, contrast with the values of capitalism and ‘progress’. Khu Vườn Lạc Hướng ( A disoriented garden ) embodies this cultural confrontation, combining found and natural objects with basic technologies to consider time, temperature, erosion, light and dark, rain and spirituality as coexisting creative forces. Trương Công Tùng does not consider his artworks to be discrete, finished pieces, but rather as components to be reworked and combined in fresh relationships within his installations. Hence each part of Khu Vườn Lạc Hướng ( A disoriented garden ) is given its own title. Trạng thái đi vắng – lời nói ở ngoài kia ( The state of absence – voices from outside ) consists of lacquered gourds resting on soil beds, connected by an arterial system of plastic tubes embedded with local seeds and stones. Water from a small pond bubbles through some of the gourds. Trong gió trên trời trong vườn . . . những cái bóng ở ngoài kia ( In the wind, on the sky, in the garden . . . the shadows out there ) is a series of round lacquer paintings suspended from the ceiling. The paintings’ rich red surfaces are marked by botanic motifs in gold leaf and fragile eggshell whites. The works’ beauty belies the fact that their images are drawn from archival photographs of forest fires and war. This implication of threat and destruction is echoed by the way the paintings dangle from sharp hooks normally employed in meat markets. Bức tường tưởng niệm ( Murals of remembrance ) is a series of wooden grids, once inhabited by silkworms but now inset with stones and pebbles, overlaid with accumulated dust, ashes and sap. Each element in Khu Vườn Lạc Hướng ( A disoriented garden ) implies a process of transformation, from the silkworm cocoons to lacquer, which is derived from tree sap and applied in layers over time to achieve the deep sheen of its polished surface. The installation, while non-narrative and unconventional in its perspective, captures some of the daily realities, culture and landscapes of the Jrai people and their livelihoods. Trương Công Tùng’s invocation of breath, wind, shadows and remembrance in the titles of his artworks evokes an organism whose constituent parts become meaningful and alive when encountered by the viewer. Through its juxtapositions, Khu Vườn Lạc Hướng ( A disoriented garden ) acknowledges the broader impact of modernisation and industrialisation on Việt Nam, the legacies of chemical warfare and ecological disaster, as well as those who have been dislocated from their homes and places of worship. Despite this, the work does not act as a memorial, but instead suggests hybridity and growth — a communal existence in which objects take on new significance when subjected to subtle processes of natural and cultural transformation. ABIGAIL BERNAL BORN 1986, ĐĂK LĂK, CENTRAL HIGHLANDS, VIỆTNAM LIVES+WORKS INHỒCHÍ MINHCITY, VIỆTNAM TRƯƠNGCÔNGTÙNG ARTISTS+PROJECTS ASIAPACIFICTRIENNIAL 198 — 199