Howdy cowboy is a story built from random happenings and experiences. In a similar way that nature and humans interweave their impact upon each other, the artists link fragments of life, history and imagination into a playful narrative. Matthew Logan (New Zealand), an artist in residency with San Art is inspired by the speed, the smell and the heat of Ho Chi Minh City. He continued his practice of sculpting found objects into new structures to materialize his sense of reality, one with Queen Mary and a whale amid the chaos of Saigon. Dao Tung (Vietnam) employs ants, bamboo sticks, and shadows in his videos. The ants don’t seem capable of escaping a circle. Their performance speaks metaphorically of human challenges – in life, are we the ants, or are we the hand that keeps them enclosed, or perhaps we are just a circle of light inserted between darkness? Tran Minh Duc’s (Vietnam) work discusses the layers in history, where events are recorded seemingly on top of one another, giving history a different meaning and poetry. Here Duc juxtaposes his own materials: a stack of condensed milk, a ‘Flower’ neon sign, novels and song to once again visualize history.

https://www.facebook.com/events/1073155082726575/

http://www.asianz.org.nz/bulletin/nz-artist-collaborates-vietnamese-counterparts-new-exhibition

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