17 July 2019, Ho Chi Minh City – ‘JUA’ exhibition opens at Saigon Botanical Garden & Zoo
9 AM - 5 PM, Sunday 28 July 2019
Saigon Botanical Garden & Zoo , Courtyard of Museum of Flora & Fauna
JUA is the third journey of Art Labor’s practice starting from 2019. It arises from their fascination with agrarian cultivation from the last century of Vietnam, during which the displacement of plants and human inward and outward Vietnam took place. Here they are interested in Robusta coffee and rice – the two products that mark Vietnam nowadays as global agricultural exporter.
The curiosity began when Art Labor tried to understand the debt cycle of Vietnamese farmers, more specifically their parents who are coffee growers on the bygone forestland in the Central Highlands. From jungle supplanting, botany systemization in farming to immigrant movements due to war or economic policies in post-war and Doi Moi era, the displacement applies not just on plants but also human labor. Thus the focus extends to various directions.
They start this agrarian journey by tracing the two-way historical routes: the import of Robusta coffee trees by colonial French to Vietnam and the rice farming of công binh – the Indochinese workers in French Camargue. While the French brought Robusta to Vietnam in order to continue their beverage pleasure and with hope to earn benefit from plantations, the Vietnamese công binh were displaced from their villages to aide ‘mère patrie’ at the World War II and then found way to start growing rice to escape starvation. Both Robusta and Camargue rice involve Vietnamese farmers’ sweat, tears and even blood from the early 1900s to now. And both had been unheard in mainstream news and history. Seldom global coffee consumers know about Robusta since it is not promoted on media and occasionally documented in papers, displayed in museums of natural history or archived in herbarium. It was less than 10 years ago that French and Vietnamese people learned about 20,000 Indochinese công binh who set foundation of France’s rice agriculture.
JUA is a beautiful word in Jrai language – the minority ethnic living among Viet people in Central Highlands. It indicates a dynamic state varying in between water and air, which can be a stream of water, rainy cloud, a breeze, a breath or wind. It represents climate and nature. Minutely it can describe how the leaves breath. Allegorically it can imply the vaporization of things: land, forest, human, capital, labor, etc.
The exhibition plans to take place in only 1 day, as a ‘happening’ to feature series of activities. The visitors will have opportunity to try Vietnamese coffee – freshly ground Robusta from the family of Art Labor’s member Truong Cong Tung in Gia Lai and bỏng gạo ống – the pop-rice snack made from the engine that is also used for other farming machines. Coffee paintings, pop-rice sculptures, dyed kites, watercolor comic strip and video art are among the art objects surrounding in the space. Architectural structure is created by covering coffee ground on corrugated iron sheets – the common cheap building material in rural Highlands. Hammock café is set up as resting station for visitors. Consecutive workshops of coffee understanding, kite making and coffee drawing will be held in the exhibition.
Art Labor’s friends and neighbors from Gia Lai, who have been supporting and collaborating with Art Labor will travel to Saigon to join and conduct these activities.
JUA is a festive day like celebration after the successful harvest!
The exhibition includes artworks in collaboration with our artist friends: Joan Jonas, Trương Quế Chi, Đỗ Văn Hoàng, Freddy Nadolny Poustochkine and Nhật Q. Võ.
Art Labor receive thoughtful mentorship from artists Joan Jonas, Rirkrit Tiravanija and writer / translator Nguyên Ngọc.
This event cannot take place without generous support from many institutions and individuals. Art Labor express our gratitude to Horizn Discovery Award, LUMA Foundation, Goethe Institut HCMC, ASEF Mobility First, BBright Co. and Mr. Dominique Lasserre.
Cross-bred
