A Soldiers’ Garden #d
2012 - Photography (Photography)
120 x 80 cm
Nguyen 'Quoc' Thành
A Soldiers’ Garden by Nhà Sàn Collective is a night portrait series located in an army camp outside Hanoi. Here new recruits assemble for basic training during the first months of their military service, before they are relocated to their assigned battalion. Night is the only time the soldiers in training have a few moments for themselves. While some viewers may be drawn to the fresh faces of young soldiers, the images also hint at distances— between the subjects and viewers, intimacy and fear, darkness and light. In this context, the garden becomes a space of transition and in betweenness. Here, the young recruits, mostly under 20-years-old, are “transitioned” into adulthood. They are no longer civilians, but not yet fully-fledged soldiers, and must negotiate this peculiar space of masculinities and male sexualities. Many of them were previously living with parents in the countryside. These portraits commemorate a particular moment in the young recruits’ lives, in which they are initiated into a new space-time of total order: physical, political, economic, and social.
Nhà Sàn Collective (NSC) began operating as an independent artist collective in Hanoi in 2013, when a group of friends set up a publicly accessible space. With or without a physical base, NSC has worked with fellow companions and collaborators to organize exhibitions, workshops, film screenings, talks, and other activities as a support platform for artists in the community. The initiative wants to encourage exchange, expansion, and connection. It is a place that is open toward works in progress and the unexpected; a just-do-it attitude that does not always yield answers. The collective board consists of Truong Que Chi, Nguyen Phuong Linh, Nguyen Quoc Thanh, Vu Duc Toan, and Tuan Mami. The name Nhà Sàn signifies the collective’s foundation which is rooted in the spirit of Nhà Sàn Studio, an artist-run space founded in 1998 in Hanoi. The original Nhà Sàn, a house on stilts, was taken apart in 2020. In the Ngoc Thuy area by the bank of the Red River, the artists imagine this house to become the new Nhà Sàn Collective space, rebuilt, and transformed.
Colors:
Related works sharing similar palette
© » ARTOMITY
Zhang Wenzhi – ARTOMITY 藝源 Tiger in Mountains, Deer at Ocean / Blindspot Gallery / Hong Kong / Nov 28, 2023 – Jan 13, 2024 / Tiger in Mountains, Deer at Ocean , curated by Leo Li Chen at Blindspot Gallery, focuses on Zhang Wenzhi’s latest series of works, primarily consisting of large-format ink-on-paper pieces, accompanied by a video...
© » ARTS EQUATOR
Pandemic in the Philippines: A cultural sector on its own | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia Articles August 17, 2020 By Katrina Stuart Santiago (2,200 words, 8-minute read) When I was first asked to write about “cultural leadership” in the Philippines, I turned up a blank...
© » HYPERALLERGIC
10 Art Books to Add to Your Shelf This December Skip to content Kareem Khubchandani's Decolonize Drag , Sonya Clark's newest catalogue, and more books we're reading this December (photo Lakshmi Rivera Amin/ Hyperallergic ) If you’re shamefully counting the titles you didn’t get around to reading this year, know that you are not alone...
© » LENS CULTURE
In Pieces - Photographs by Sophia Bulgakova, Lia Dostlieva, Ola Lanko, Katia Motyleva and Kateryna Snizhko | Book review by Sophie Wright | LensCulture Feature In Pieces In this imaginative collection of photobooks “made with a child in mind,” five artists of Ukrainian descent explore the everyday heroism of life in wartime...
© » KADIST
Victor & Sergiy Kochetov
1992Ukraine-Russia / Volleyball by Viktor and Sergiy Kochetov features a concrete monument of women volleyball players before the railway station in the village of Vodyanoye, Kharkiv region...
© » KADIST
Gisela McDaniel
2020Got Your Back by Gisela McDaniel depicts two women of color from different ethnic backgrounds who share similar violent experiences...
© » ARTS EQUATOR
The ArtsEquator Logo Challenge: How Well Do You Know Your Southeast Asian Capitals? Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia ArtsEquator Viewpoints January 22, 2019 Hands up if you’ve ever wondered what the ArtsEquator logo symbolises! 🙋 Few can identify all the Southeast Asian capitals represented by the red dots on the logo...
© » ARTS EQUATOR
Flowing Reflections: “EARTH” at the M1 CONTACT Contemporary Dance Festival 2018 | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia Articles Bernie Ng Left: "EARTH", by Rudi Cole and Júlia Robert Parés, HumanHood (UK); Right: "Filled with sadness, the old body attacks" by Kim Jae Duk June 25, 2018 By Jocelyn Chng (960 words, 6-minute read) EARTH opens the 2018 edition of the M1 CONTACT Contemporary Dance Festival, the annual festival organised by T...
