from ‘Five Questions’ series (2019 – Ongoing).

2021

Vietnamese handmade Dó paper, wooden table, washing machine, metal kitchen sink, metal faucet, wooden bed, polypropylene tube, wooden statues.

THE GODS OF EXPECTATIONS is an amalgamation of ancient Vietnam matriarchal icons from various folk religions and symbols of domestic duty. It contains three sculptures, together with five questions painted on the wall. DIVINE CYCLE combines a goddess statue and a washing machine. DIVINE CONSTANT is a goddess statue sitting on top of a kitchen sink that has been installed on an altar table. DIVINE SOURCE is a goddess statue in a lying down pose on top of a bed (which is not the way this type of statue is traditionally displayed). The lying down pose is traditionally for male buddhas. The three works are connected through an umbilical cord. The five questions painted on the wall in Vietnamese language are: Who is woman? What is woman? Where is woman? Why is woman? When is woman? The viewer is invited to interact with the works by answering one or all five questions. They can place their answers inside the washing machine, inside the sink, or on the bed. At a later date, the collected answers will be published in a book without a name attached.

THE GODS OF EXPECTATIONS is about the expectations of women in society specifically related to domestic duties such as taking care of the household and bearing children. Women around the world do a much higher amount of unpaid household work and care work, on average two and half times more than men. While the margin is smaller in wealthier countries like the U.S., women in the U.S. still do an average of 4 hours of unpaid household work a day, compared to 2.5 hours for men. Why does domestic labor of cooking, cleaning, and caretaking always default to women? And yet, it is rarely recognized as ‘work’.

By combining symbols of female power with symbols of female duty, it is my intention to create a new kind of object that challenges our collective understanding of femininity.

from ‘Five Questions’ series (2019 – ongoing).

2020

Vietnamese handmade Dó paper, Gouache, Metal and Fabric.

In 2020 I was the first Vietnamese artist to win the Pacific Leipzig Residency Program. As the winner, I lived and worked for 3 months in Leipzig, Germany, at a place called “Spinnerei”. This place used to be a giant factory that employed thousands of men and women workers throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. Inspired by the place that was once the largest factory in mainland Europe, I wanted to do work on the subject of female labor.

As the symbol of female labor, I chose a mop and a bucket. The mop and the bucket are universally understood objects used for cleaning. Historically women in the workplace have been paid a fraction of what men are paid. For example: the gender gap in pay has remained stable in the United States in the last two decades. In 2002, women earn 80% of men. In 2022, women in the U.S. earn only 83% of what men earn. Globally, women around the world do a much higher amount of unpaid work daily, particularly related to domestic labor. Because it is an unpaid labor, it is seen as one of the lowest forms of labor. Female laborers make up an invisible workforce, who perform low-paid or unpaid tasks for societies that devalue their contributions.

Together with the mop and the bucket are the 5 questions I painted on a large scale and in German language. They are the same set of 5 questions: Who is woman? What is woman? Where is woman? Why is woman? When is woman? The viewer is invited to interact with the work by answering one or all five questions and putting the answers into the bucket. At a later date, the collected answers will be published in a book without a name attached.

The work THE INVISIBILITY OF FEMALE LABOUR recognizes and acknowledges women’s labor. To bring women’s work out of the shadows, and put a stop to the stereotypical gender roles that relegate women to the least valued positions in society, we must first take a step toward acknowledgment and respect for the multitude of working women. The work focuses on the question: How to make the invisible visible?

2019

Vietnamese handmade Dó paper

The States of Mind was displayed at Myorakuji temple, a historical site in Fukuoka city. Myorakuji was built by Getsudo Soki in 1316 and is the temple of the Rinza school Daltokuji Sect of Buddhism.

The installation contains a female figure in 5 different poses based on different states of mind. The basic form is inspired by primal ancient female icons from various cultures. For example: the ancient sculpture Venus of Willendorf, a famous female figurine created in the Paleolithic era, and other Venues figurines such as pre–Columbian era Nayarit.

Finding inspiration in primal female forms, I am aspiring toward a goal of universality, to find a point of connection for all of us regardless of our background or culture. As human beings, we share common emotional experiences in life, such as the feeling of winning, losing, frustration, relaxation, and exhaustion. The five statues I created express universal emotional states of mind using five different poses of the body.

The five poses are Relaxation, Protection, Celebration, Fatigue, and Nourishment. The viewer is invited to interact with the female figures by answering one or more of the five questions I have proposed:

Who is woman?

What is woman?

Where is woman?

Why is woman?

When is woman?

The viewer can write their answer on a small piece of Dó paper that I provide. They can then glue the paper with their answer freely onto one of the five figures of their choice. As such, this artwork, The States of Mind, becomes a vessel for people's thoughts and ideas about women. Their answers to the five questions become embedded within the work. At a later date, the collected answers will be published in a book without a name attached.

2019

Vietnamese handmade Dó paper, traditional Vietnamese silver leaf, clay.

VENUS was created specifically for Art Omi residency, New York.

The work VENUS puts woman in the center to celebrate her strength, her power and her sensitivity. This female form is inspired by Venus of Willendorf, a famous female figure created in the Paleolithic era and discovered in Austria. My reinterpretation of this and other Venus figurines reflects my interest in reviving matriarchal histories and symbols in cultures around the world. VENUS is a shrine that honors and celebrates women everywhere and invites you to pay your respect. 

2019

Vietnamese handmade Dó paper, Lacquer, Jackfruit wood.

DIVINE FEMININE is a site-specific installation produced for the Sculpture Expanded Moving Laboratory of Public Art in Helsinki, Finland. Sculpture Expanded was a citywide exhibition of sculpture in public spaces that lasted for 6 months and was one of the largest sculpture events ever held in Helsinki. Because my sculpture would be exhibited outside over a long time, I wanted to create something that would respond to and be affected by the elements.

DIVINE FEMININE was inspired by traditional Vietnamese female religious iconography (specifically, three female goddesses of the Đạo Mẫu folk religion). These 3 female icons are believed to have originated from the matriarchal societies of ancient Vietnam. To make this work, I went to Sơn Đồng village, in the North of Vietnam where they specialize in making lacquer statues using the traditional techniques passed down through the generations. I commissioned the local craftspeople to carve three goddesses using the traditional Northern technique. The three wooden statues were then lacquered using gold leaf. Finally, I covered them with circles of Dó paper.

The installation was displayed in three locations throughout Helsinki. Through time, the viewer will observe natural changes to the appearance of the statues due to weathering.

DIVINE FEMININE is a study of Vietnamese matriarchal imagery and traditional craft. It is also a reflection of my intention to revive matriarchal histories and symbols in Vietnamese culture as well as to celebrate female power, strength, and sensibility.

Exhibition date in 2019: 17.5 – 30.6.2019 Redi, Helsinki
1.7 – 15.8.2019 Ravintola Töölönranta, Helsinki
15.8 – 15.9.2019 Allas Sea Pool, Helsinki

Exhibition date in 2020: (the last 2 images) 10.6 – 6.9.2020 Veteran’s Park, Espoo Keskus

2007. Revisited 2017.

Vietnamese handmade Dó paper, Lacquer, Jute Rope, Cement

In 2017, ten years since I first experimented with WORMS, I decided to revisit this work. The installation now contains a large female sculpture. The form is inspired by the ancient sculpture of Venus of Willendorf and the Pre-Columbian terra-cotta Nayarit style known as Chinesco. In these forms, I am looking for iconic physical silhouettes of a woman.

The woman statue in my work is holding a large rope that looks like braided hair. This large rope opens up to a massive net that contains tons of braided and nonbraided hair tied together with strange objects that look like worms. These strange objects that she is holding onto, form some kind of massive, unpleasant, dreadful thing. These things are coming out of her body, weighing her down. It is a monstrous baggage that she needs to use all of her weight to hold on to, and she is determined not to let go.

Obviously, the burdens of females are many. But in this work, I am talking about one type of burden.

Often femaleness is defined based on biology and a woman’s ability to carry and give birth to a child. This understanding of female-ness related to reproductive biology is common across cultures. Females experience social pressure; they get subjected to questions and comments about their reproductive function; they get pressured into making up “the acceptable” answer for why they decide not to have children. If biology defines femaleness then I question, is it every woman’s duty to be a mother? Have women really been liberated from these constraints or is it an illusion? Can females reject the idea of femaleness as a biological function and instead understand it as a spiritual expression of universal energy without fear and shame?

2004. Revisited 2016

Vietnamese handmade Dó paper, Glass Jar, Table, Dry Powder Pigment

My first experiment with BALLS was in 2004. In 2016, I revisited the work and started a series of work focusing on significant social issues including gender roles, gender equality, societal hierarchies, and female identity. 

The installation includes a black lacquer table in the style of a Northern altar with a large jar on top overflowing with balls. An altar like this would exist in a typical home and is a place to put an incense holder, which Vietnamese believe houses the souls of their ancestors. On top of the table is a large glass jar. It is used to infuse traditional herbs with rice liquor to make herbal spirits. Many older Vietnamese men will have a jar of herbal spirits in their homes because it is widely believed to be good for men’s sexual health. There are more than 20 thousand hand-sculpted balls that overfill the glass jar onto the floor. I doubled the amount of balls for 2016 and changed the color from bright red to dark plum.

On the wall across from the table, I hand-painted a large sentence in the propaganda style. It reads NHIỆM VỤ LỚN NHẤT CỦA PHỤ NỮ LÀ SINH RA MỘT ĐỨA CON TRAI. This translates to something like: “Woman’s greatest duty is to produce a son”. 

This sentence came from Confucianism. In Confucianism, the life of a woman is controlled by three people: her father, her husband, and her son. This idea is understood as a kind of Vietnamese idiom which is a type of propaganda. “Tại gia tòng phụ, xuất giá tòng phu, phu tử tòng tử”. At home, you obey your father, married you obey your husband, husband dead you obey your son. Girls were raised to obey, serve, and take care of the man. Confucianism has influenced the Vietnamese for centuries. Today its influence on the younger generation has lost some of its grip but is still ingrained in the collective mind.

In this work, I question the traditional roles of women in Vietnamese culture. 

What does it mean to be a “modern woman” in Vietnamese society?

How does biology affect our understanding of gender roles?

While the work BALLS focuses on the female experience in Vietnam, it is itself deeply critical of traditional gender roles as they relate to power structures and societal hierarchies in my culture.

2012

Vietnamese handmade Dó paper

My Dad passed away in 2002. His death left a big hole in my heart that for many years I tried my best to ignore. As the 10-year anniversary of his passing approached, I decided to make an artwork dedicated to my father. I hoped that action would allow me to face his absence and find peace with his passing.

I decided to start with an object I felt represented my dad. It took me  three years to choose something that I felt truly represented him. In the end, I chose a dictionary. My Dad was an avid reader and collected books on many different topics, most of all the topic of language. He was too shy to call himself a linguist even though he worked for many years at the Sino-Vietnamese language institute. My Dad passionately studied languages throughout his life. Due to this passion, we always had large-scale bilingual dictionaries around our house. Whenever I see that type of dictionary, I think of him. 

For the artwork DICTIONARIES, I decided to sculpt 1000 paper objects in the form of dictionaries. People often ask me; why 1000? 1000 wasn’t a number that I made up along the way. I knew from the beginning that I would sculpt 1000. I chose this very large number because I believed an intense amount of labor would be necessary. The concentrated, repetitive labor established a meditative mindset, that allowed the complex feelings surrounding my father’s passing to peacefully emerge.

The basic function of a Dictionary is to contain data. Unlike other types of books, a dictionary is not meant to be read and comprehended in its entirety. It has no narrative to follow or story to be told. Instead, dictionaries are a tool, packed full of organized information to be stored away and accessed when needed. The artwork DICTIONARIES functions in a similar way for me. It contains the mass of my memories related to my Dad which, in their entirety remain unknowable to me. Those memories are stored away, compartmentalized. The making of DICTIONARIES allowed me to externalize a myriad of memories and emotions. Getting them out of my head and into the book.

Together with the installation Dictionaries, I made a book CÒN LẠI | RỜI RẠC as a companion piece. The book has 18 individual cards. Each card has 2 sides. 

One side contains images of my dad's belongings or pictures of us. The other side contains my writing of my memories of my dad. During the time of creating this book, I didn’t seek other people's memories. I want it to be my memories only, even if it is misshapen because of time, but it is purely mine.

CÒN LẠI | RỜI RẠC is part of the Asia Art Archive collection and the School Of the Art Institute of Chicago Collection.

2004

Vietnamese handmade Dó paper, Dry Powder Pigment

BALLS 2004 is one of the first sculptural objects that I made with Dó paper. It is also one of the first of my works to be created through a repetition of a single. 

2009

Vietnamese Handmade Dó Paper, Traditional Korean Bean Powder

I was born in Hanoi and when I was 6 years old I moved to Saigon. This move made a lot of impact on my childhood because the North and the South of Vietnam at that time, and still is, a very different place. They are almost like 2 different countries.

When I was in my early 20s, I moved from Saigon to Cincinnati, again, this move made an extensive impact in my early adult life. The impact of these drastic moves creates a feeling of not completely belonging to one place. While I’m in Vietnam I don’t really feel like I can fit into the society but then, while I’m in the US, I don’t feel entirely belong there either. I have continued to make this type of extensive moves throughout the years. 

I created this work BIRDS while I was in Brooklyn New York, feeling like a migration bird carrying a sense of belonging but not belonging. In this work, I hand sculpted more than seven hundred objects based on the form of a small bird. Hand sculpted from paper pulp in my small apartment in Brooklyn.

This work was created specifically for the International Women Biennale in Incheon, South Korea in 2009. I installed them in concentric circles like a Mandala. 

The flock of birds is facing outward in a geometric unity.

For me, migration is not a negative thing. 

It is a natural thing that birds do. 

It is part of their strength.

2010

Vietnamese Handmade Dó Paper

I cast my own body with Dó paper and layed it outdoors amongst the grass and trees.

Here it was exposed to many natural elements such as sun, rain…

For 6O days, I witness the transformation of the cast body as It changed. At one point a dog even carried my face away to somewhere.

In the end my body completely disintegrated into the earth.

The body and mind are forever changing. The body is subjected to growth and decline while the mind is constructed and deconstructed. When we die, our bodies will return to the earth and they will return to their basic building blocks such as dirt, water and air. All of which will support other life. This constant state of flux, is how I define impermanence. My artwork, is an extension of myself and a manifestation of an idea. It lives in the material world and is impermanent. My works are made with delicate materials from natural sources. They will naturally transform and eventually return to their basic elemental forms, along with the part of me that exists within it. 

2004. Revisited 2017

Vietnamese Handmade Dó Paper, Dry Powder Pigment

In 2004, I started working on a piece called HOME. At that time, I had lived in the USA for 2 and a half years and had received my Bachelor's Degree in Fine Art. I decided to not stay and work in the US but instead, return home to Vietnam. I had been living in the US by myself, for the first time in my life, and made a home for myself in a foreign country. Now I had to leave it behind. I realized that I couldn’t bring most of my possessions back with me to Vietnam. It was at this time I started working on an artwork.

I started by using Dó paper to cast various objects from around my apartment. These objects included my television, table, chairs, pots, bowls, chopsticks, paintbrushes, tubes of paint, handbags, cosmetics, cellphone, books, shoes, etc. For the next 6 months, I cast hundreds of objects. When each cast was done, I placed it outside in an empty yard next to my apt. The cast remained outdoors for months where they were rained on and became buried in snow throughout the fall and early winter. This process transformed the objects cast from my possessions into something new. They took on the appearance of ancient artifacts found in an archeological dig. 

Before returning to Vietnam I exhibited them as a farewell to my life in America.

In 2O17, 13 years later, for the Taiwan Annual exhibition, I revisited HOME. Due to the expanse of time since the work was created, many of the objects I could no longer recognize. They had become a mystery to me, even though they were once so familiar.

For the exhibition, I created a map to accompany the objects. The map reflected the growing disconnect between myself and the objects. 

One part of me kept returning to my memories, trying to recall the details. While another part of me slowly accepted the fading of those memories.

2014

THE ROOM is collaboration between my husband Gregory Jewett and myself. It was installed in a space within our home, which we converted into a gallery.

The room was divided into 2 sections by a large white partition wall. When the viewers enter the exhibition, they enter Gregory's side first. On this side of the room is installed a glowing fiberglass bear which is standing facing the partition. The bear is standing on top of an abstract black and white photograph. Installed within the wall directly behind the bear is a chrome sign with the word Tilt illuminated.

On the far side of the partition sits a large square, black lacquer platform, which is situated the middle of the space. On top of the platform rests a chrome "bed".  On top of the bed lie two small sculptural objects, one next to the other. These two objects were crafted using Dó paper and pigment and have an organic shape. To the right of the platform are two white curtains suspended inside of white wooden frames. Behind the curtains are two round lights attached to the wall, one slightly smaller than the other.

During the public opening, we closed off the exhibition area with a rope partition, preventing the viewer from entering the space and viewing the work from a close vantage point.

THE ROOM is a recreation and interpretation of a share memory between Gregory and me. Each side of the room represents our individual point of view from within the shared memory. The room is a complex, mysterious place, a dream like aberration, frozen in time. THE ROOM is an expression of two individual points of view concerning a shared moment in time. It was a moment that was simultaneously isolating and unifying, and a moment we never truly shared and will always share.

2011

Vietnamese Handmade Dó Paper, Wood

STATUES was installed on the 4th floor of the Park Armory Avenue in New York City. The Park Armory was built in 1880 and served as the headquarters and administrative building for the 7th New York Militia Regiment, which was an infantry regiment in the Union Army during the American Civil War.

From 2006, the building became a place for performance and exhibition. The work STATUES featured a variety of wooden statues, all of which I covered in Dó paper. The Dó paper gave them a uniform color and cover, like that of an army uniform. When the exhibition finished, I left STATUES at the Armory for whoever wanted to take them, thus disbanding the group. In that way the work exists in two forms, first as a group, second as scattered individuals.

2007

Vietnamese handmade Dó paper, Lacquer, Nylon Rope

2005-2006

Vietnamese handmade Dó paper, Jute Rope

CLOUDS was created in Hanoi, in 2005 and it was initial inspired by the desert cloud of the American South-West. I created this work slowly over the course of two years. During this time, the work evolved in shape, color and texture dramatically due to the particularly high levels of humidity in Hanoi.

For example, mold would grow, spreading through the work. As a reaction to this I would repeatedly spray a diluted bleach solution into the work in order to control it. I also discovered that baby powder kept the work dry and helped to protect it against the humidity. The mold, bleach and baby powder all became part of the aesthetic of the final piece, adding texture, color and influencing the overall form of the work.

This process of allowing nature to modify my work, while at the same time protecting my work against nature is an important part of my making process. Even after I consider a work is finish, natural elements will continue to affect the work in a number of ways.

2004

Vietnamese Handmade Dó Paper, Dry Powder Pigment

EGGS is one of the first sculptural objects that I made with Dó paper. It is also the first of my works to be created through a repetition of a single. 

2002

Vietnamese Handmade Dó Paper, Dry Powder Pigment, Photographs

Selected paintings which was created in 2002, when I first started using Dó paper to create artwork.

With this series I started to experiment with Dó paper in a few ways such as: using powder pigment stain the paper much like dyeing cloth, cutting out holes and tearing the paper. Right after this series, I focused my interest on sculptural work.