Project: site / shine / sight
Location: The Factory Contemporary Arts Centre, HCM City, Vietnam
Topos: Flexible open-plan space
Typus: Site-specific art installation
Area: 420 qm
BGF: 210 qm
Year: 2018
Commission: LP 1-9
Status: Completed
Collaboration: Truong Que Chi
Curator: Arlette Quynh-Anh Tran
Advisor: Anh Cuong Nguyen
Lead Architects: Huong Vu, Dung Nguyen
Team: Giang Vu
Credit: 
1 © vn-a
2 © Nam Phan
3 © Anh Cuong Nguyen

‘site / shine / sight’ is a duo exhibition featuring collaboration between visual artist/filmmaker, Trương Quế Chi and architectural studio, vn-a. This is the first time that visual art and architecture comes together at The Factory, in an attempt to explore how elements of light can be communicated, perceived, interpreted and even manipulated within the context and conditions of a contemporary art space. They will transform the space of The Factory Contemporary Arts Centre into a dim maze, where all light emits from the various sculpture, installation and photography within the recesses of particularly placed, structurally specific walls. Such a staged arrangement of objects and architectural elements – the first event of its kind in Vietnam on this scale –  seeks to create an atmosphere of a strange faraway place. The curious and ambiguous first encounter of a new place is akin to a field trip with an anthropological approach, whereby an artist, architect, researcher or missionary, maps a site as they discover and study an object, community, or territory. Within this project, the artists are curious of the process of discovery and interpretation, as the investigator – here the artists and also the audience – may find themselves lost at a new site. They will then learn to detect shape, character, or function of subject and object on-site, connecting and reading these ‘dots’ from their original contexts to their current surroundings at the Factory, such a context seeking an audience’s unbounded perspective. Initially this exhibition was inspired by the historical context of particular architecture and landscape in the Central Highlands of Vietnam, such as local housing and sacred buildings. Later, personal reflection and materials outside of this original context expand the projects’ formal and conceptual narratives.