WORK TITLE: In The Middle Of Nowhere
LOCATION: District 5, Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam.
TECHNIQUES: Photography, Electronic performing.
THE PLOT: Landscape was the first human text, read before the invention of other signs and symbols. In modern society, it’s good for a person to be called an insider when he’s having enough inside knowledge of the landscape. However, there’re some people who don’t feel themselves as insider nor outsider at all. And being a Chinese-Vietnamese has never been easy for us.
Landscape tells us and asks us to think about where we belong.
We see landscape, we walk street, we touch tree, we speak Vietnamese, and Chinese too.
We tried to immerse ourselves in the culture, but we failed, because they didn’t accept us.
When we stepped forward as a Vietnamese, the Chinese went away from us. When we headed as a Chinese, the Vietnamese ignored us.
We are totally lost. We don’t know what to do.
Should we keep moving forward? Or should we step back? Should we turn our lights on? Or we will dazzle people though we never wanted to?
Landscape is already there, but we, the in-the-middle-of-nowhere individuals, have nowhere to belong to.
Cuong Dao