On the occasion of the graduate exhibition 2024 The Call at Schaumainkai 96, Thuy Tien Nguyen received the graduate prize of the Städelschule Portikus e.V., endowed with € 2,000.
Thuy Tien Nguyen
b. 1993 in Hanoi
class of Haegue Yang
The graduation exhibition “The Call” features two of my works : a sound installation and a sculpture. Both explore themes of discipline, states of fragility and rigidity present in early education, and the current architectural conditions of the space.
“About the weight of a tragic eyelid” borrows from a common belief in Vietnam, that parent and teachers would warn the kids not to look at something forbidden, otherwise the kids would have a swollen eyelid. The sculpture located in the corner of the room, covered with window glasses. The wooden platform almost looks like a stage, an outline of a furniture piece. It marks its own territory of 4 meter square with one step higher from the floor, filled with dark liquid sustain. The shape of this liquid territory references to a platform used widely in Vietnamese classroom, lending a separation in space and level between teachers and students.
The dark liquid sustain quite sinking into the wooden platform, turning the structure into a vessel of purple fountain ink. The fountain ink is from Hong Ha company, one of the oldest company from north Vietnam to producing fountain pens and ink; and the particular purple ink is a requirement imposed on students, to learn how to write, with their right hands , the Latin alphabet. Poking from the purple ink is five individual stainless sculpture, tip-toeing on top the ink surface. Through the glass windows, the light illuminates the pool of purple ink. The illumination then reflects on to the steel, which polished to a mirrored surface. To mirror is to reflect the light which the eyes are set to see. A mirroring of a mirror, a reflecting of a reflection, then became a disruption of looking. The eyes are made to see, to look. More than a tear drainage, its lids exist to protect. A swelling occurs when the eyelid fails.
Colloquially, a stye is a consequence of looking at something forbidden.
Colloquially, my hands still remains the purple ink these days.
(Thuy Tien Nguyen)
Jury
The jury of the Graduate Prize 2024, kindly sponsored by Städelschule Portikus e.V. and Sammlung Pohl gGmbH, consists of Julia Galandi-Pascual (Director Sammlung Pohl), Julia Magnus (Städelschule Portikus e.V.), Yasmin Naderi Afschar (Co-Director Kunsthalle Mainz) and Prof. Yasmil Raymond (Rector Städelschule und Director, Portikus).
With support from Städelschule Portikus e.V.
