The already seen never seen

More than once the things that appeared unfamiliar were in fact the very familiar things, what would have been expected to hurt are not capable of wounding anyone. More than once the many things which had seemed to have been there for a long time had in fact been nowhere. So many times many things were considered like that, yet they never existed like that.

Many things happened but what is considered proof is missing so they cannot be so. Many seemingly real things cannot be verified by all the laws of truth, so they are never truly real.

Life, reality, the world are all made by both the seen and the unseen. Like salt and fresh water when they meet at the sea gate. Like comedy and tragedy within the same drama. Like a poem which is incapable of evoking a meaning. 

       

THE SONNET IN BLUE

An in-situ and interactive installation by Tran Trong Vu at the National Gallery Singapore, in the framework of the Childrien's Biennale 2017.

"I propose an art-work which suggests several reflexions about the reality and the fiction, the dream and the daily , the truth and the lie, the forgery and the authenticity, the violence and the softness…

I propose an art-work which would cause several dialogues between the colour and the form, between the form and the word, between what is looked at and what is felt.

I propose an art-work which would be a physical and direct connexion between the viewers and the image.

I propose an art-work which would be an appointment of two worlds: the one of reality and the other of imagination.

I propose also an art-work which would be an encounter of two universes: the one for adults and the other for children.

This art-work would be a visual pleasure which would lead to other non-visual and intellectual pleasures, a desire for the viewers to discover themselves what is beyond appearance. Thus, THE SONNET IN BLUE  would be a visual poem that hides many other poems in words."

In several Asian countries there exists a tradition according to which people hang their wishes on a tree, in a landscape, at a corner of street.… so that these wishes are realized. From this practice I created a vegetable form which flowers and in the flowers many poetic words were written by children from the South-East Asia area. 

The vegetable form are manufactured with plastic sheets. It takes the form of a labyrinth. It crawls in space and crosses from a space to another... The viewers are invited to enter the installation, to circulate, to open the flowers, to read and to write their short texts on its petals.

To prepare this work, a collection of words was organised, in collation with the Biennale, the schools, the festivals for children in Singapore… Then these words were reproduced inside the flowers.

During the exhibition time the children are invited to write continuously their messages about "Dreams and Stories", on the petals of flowers. 

My thanks to the entire the National Gallery Singapore team, the 40 volunteers who worked hard everyday during two weeks, and all the children who participate in my work.

 

PHOTOGRAPHIC WORKS (2016 - 2017)

 

PAINTING LIKE WRITING IS A VIOLATION OF PRIVACY (2015)

 

 

The Meeting Point

Installation, plastic fabrics, wood, wire mesh.1000 cm x 800 cm x 300 cm (length, width, height), 2016.

Behind the superficial appearance may just lie hidden some deep truth.  On the other side of visual images one may just find verbal words.

This landscape is as a meeting point of the image and the words, of the artificial and the intimacy, the false and truth, the memory and the reality, the impossible and the possible…

This work pays homage to my father, dissident poet: The viewers are invited to open those plastic flowers, they will find on their petals a diary of my father, in the form of many poetic words. These writings were prohibited in Vietnam by the authorities. For that my father spent a certain time in prison and lost his right to work, neither to publish his texts, until his death.