Down to Freezing Point No.1, 2009
For Nguyễn, we feel before we think, and it is this sense of feeling our way through the world that is of key interest.
The camera lens is Tú Đức Nguyễn’s third eye. Its mechanical objectivity twisted and edited into a hyper-real dimension where situations of the ‘real’ are subverted into absurd narrative. Nguyễn’s relationship to the reproduction of reality is a bodily experience, a particular space of awareness that recognizes the lag between sensory and cognitive understanding. For Nguyễn, we feel before we think, and it is this sense of feeling our way through the world that is of key interest. Working within the digital realm, as photographer, video cameraman or television producer, Nguyễn’s artistic practice takes Vietnam and its social landscape as central subject. Belonging to a generation of artists who have not directly experienced the struggles of the previous war-torn era in Vietnam, Nguyễn’s work contemplates the affect of these inherited memories which he believes are fast becoming hidden or irresponsibly thrust aside. In Nguyễn’s work, the struggles of Vietnam’s history are illuminated through the contrast of what is desired and what is lived. His images mirror the current near blind passion for the new, evidenced in lifestyle choices and building projects, or the aloof attitude towards creating sustainable means of living for social communities.
In the series of panoramic photographs in ‘Down to Freezing-Point’, Nguyễn leans on his third eye and its ability to capture a single moment. This single-freeze or snap shot, wide and encompassing in its gaze, casts a window in pause on Ho Chi Minh City. This conceptual focus on a freezing point, the cusp of time and space where substance moves from liquid to solid, is of particular note. Nguyễn asks, when do our desires manifest themselves from fiction to reality? What are the implications of such transformations? In one image, a young girl, fairytale-like in her white costume, moves as an ethereal presence within a maze of ramshackle tin structures in which the majority of Vietnam’s population dwells; meanwhile in another landscape, various casually clad youngsters are running in mid-air as they move in and out of a modern apartment blocks. One of the most striking photographs in this series shows gravity in full force, depicting a toy aeroplane being thrown into the air, only to be caught by a girl who hangs suspended, upside down in a similar subverted urban landscape.
After graduating from the Faculty of Graphic Design, Hanoi Open University in 2005, Nguyễn decided to move to Ho Chi Minh City where he currently lives and works. Working predominantly in video, photography and installation, and as an active member of Hanoilink (www.hanoilink.com), his work has recently been showcased in ‘Down to Freezing-Point’ (solo) Studio Tho, Hanoi and Galerie Quynh, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; ‘Les Restes – La Chose Perdue’, Le Tarmac Theatre, de la villet, Paris, France, 2008; ‘Pho and All Things Similar’, Casula Power House, Liverpool City Council, Perth, Australia, 2008; ‘Diary of a Traveling City’, San Art, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, 2008; ‘Chungbuk International Art Fair 2007’, Cheongju, South Korea; ‘Andeokbeol Art Festival’, Cheongju City, South Korea and ‘The Pig and the Individual Views’, Hanoilink, Hanoi, 2007. (Written by Zoe Butt)