Opening: 20.04.2018 
Exhibition on view until 21.04.2018
Location: San Art reading room
3F, 264 Nam Ky Khoi Nghia, District 3

A few memories of our past programme Back-to-Back: A Collaborative Series of Discursive Encounters that took place in April 2018.

In week 3 of Back-to-Back, we looked at Relational Aesthetics and Participatory art. Our core reading included essays by Nicolas Bourriaud, Claire Bishop, Anthony Downey, Thomas J. Berghuis and Joan Kee. Participants were asked to contribute by bringing visual material and questions to fuel discussions. While we began the seminar by trying to define Relational Aesthetics and look at examples from Southeast Asia, we then moved onto using Relational Aesthetics as a methodological/critical tool to analyze curatorial or participatory practices. As we wrapped up our final session we were joined by some amazing art practitioners such as artist and San Art founder Dinh Q. Le, Chaosdowntown Chao curator Vicky Do and artist and co-founder of Six Space Le Giang. Thank you all for joining!

Spanning over 6 afternoons, Back-to-Back was a month-long public education programme that debated relations of contemporary art in Vietnam to Western canonical models. With the idea of constructing a long-term project that could contribute to the local art scene, Back-to-Back served as our initial starting point where we could examine and dissect theories and practices in art history/curating and exchange our knowledge as either artists, curators, critics or active members of the art scene in Vietnam or abroad. Back-to-Back was organised by Do Tuong Linh, Marie David and Tra Nguyen.

Stay tuned – Back-2-Back will return soon!