Băng Qua Nước: Across Land, Across Water is an exhibition curated by Ivy Vuong (Yale ‘23) exploring how home(s) exist, twist, and meld across land and water for Vietnamese diasporic peoples. The word nước in Vietnamese can mean homeland, nation, or water. Water, via the Atlantic Ocean, gave passage to loss and new lives for thousands of Vietnamese ‘boat people’ escaping Vietnam post-1975 in the wake of the fall of Saigon––a displacement fraught with grief yet teeming with strength and resilience.
The three performances featured all stemmed from Ivy Vuong’s invitation to exhibit alongside other Vietnamese artists. Each of the iterations incorporate traditional Vietnamese garments donated by Southeast Asian communities from around the country.
Installation at the Maryland Chinese Culture and Community Service Center for Băng Qua Nước: Across Land, Across Water, a group exhibition curated by Ivy Vuong.
2 hour durational performance for the opening
performance for “New Explorations in Mediascapes and Memoryscapes” at Bannister Gallery in Providence, RI
Installation for Băng Qua Nước: Across Land, Across Water at Creatives Arts Workshop in New Haven, CT
performance for the closing reception of Băng Qua Nước: Across Land, Across Water in New Haven, CT
“As USC PAM celebrates our 50th anniversary, we look to the future by asking questions and reflecting on our past as it is embodied in the museum’s collection and display of Asian and Pacific Island art. For whom was this collection created and how does its meaning change when seen through the eyes of our diverse communities? Intervention: Fresh Perspectives after 50 Years finds new ways to view the USC PAM permanent collection through the work of seven contemporary Asian diasporic artists: Antonius Bui, Audrey Chan, Jennifer Ling Datchuk, Amir Fallah, Akiko Jackson, Alan Nakagawa, and kate-hers RHEE. By creating original artworks in response to PAM’s collection, these artists will remind visitors that USC PAM’s history is complex, and our public has many ways to consider this story beyond how it is presented in our galleries, website, and printed materials.” -USC PAM
photos by Peter Perigo
The Protectors stand proudly and alert, submerged in a field of vessels, instruments, motifs, patterns, and symbols sourced from the permanent collection. Even though many of the containers depicted are broken, or on the verge of crumbling, The Protectors insist on preserving the fragments because that’s all they’ve ever known. Working together, they attempt to build an archive that is free from the bureaucratic, linguistic, cultural, and psychological grips of colonialism.
Embedded into the topography of their skins are contemporary tattoos and markings that explore notions of sex, pleasure, spirituality, ornamentalism, queer theory, and home, amongst many others. However, the limits of their flesh are always in flux since they are constantly time traveling, going wherever fragments must be recovered.
An ongoing series of self-portraits taken on Mac’s Photo Booth in various landscapes. Each image is a screenshot taken from a site-specific movement, a memory of an ephemeral performance.
moniquemeloche is pleased to announce the gallery’s debut solo exhibition with Antonius Bui – The Detour is To Be Where We Are. Bui will present a new series of intensively hand-cut paper portraits, a visualization of hybrid identities and histories, told through an intersectional queer AAPI lens.
June 26-August 14, 2021
~Discover more about the exhibition and works here~
Documentation by Robert Chase Heishman.
Excuse me, why do you still have your shoes on? Don’t you know it’s common courtesy to remove them?
Visitors are invited to take off their shoes and contribute to the piece as a sign of respect to the exhibiting artists. They are asked to walk around with house slippers after installing their shoes alongside footwear sourced from the permanent collection.
Many cultures embrace the tradition of removing one’s shoes in the home and places such as churches, temples, and schools. By asking people to remove their shoes throughout the duration of the visit, Antonius is re-negotiating our ideas of space, ownership, performance, and agency within the museum setting.
One of two pieces in USC PAM’s Intervention: Fresh Perspectives after 50 Years Exhibition.
What does survival mean?
Who do we create for and why?
Visionary Futures builds upon Curator Ashley DeHoyos’ past projects Collective Presence and Bayou City Be All and highlights how queer, non-binary communities are at the forefront of cultural change. For Visionary Futures, DeHoyos has asked these artists to engage in a series of conversations on speculative futures leading to the creation of new works that consider and further develop ideas of queer, LGBTQIA+, and BIPOC futurism, with several prompts that begin to unravel notions of survival, considering how and who do we create for and why?
Visionary Futures provides an opportunity for each artist to consider new paradigms for cultural exchange and the legacies that they seek to leave behind at the intersections of art, technology, and spirituality.
Antonius-Tín Bui has orchestrated a series of guided meditations in collaboration with Theresa-Xuan Bui, Khushboo Gulati, Brinda Iyer, Kunj, jas lin, Xoài Pham, Michelle Phuong Ting, Kyoko Takenaka, and Mimi Zhu, with graphics by Jason Ting. Collective Ideation will be posted on the Diversworks website and disseminated weekly in the organization’s e-newsletter.
Installation view and details of “Spirit Week,” 2021. Joss paper, incense sticks, peacock feathers, plastic ribbon. Photos by @crafthouston
These forms are known as mums, a nod to the Texas, high-school homecoming tradition, popularized in the 1970s and 1980s, that students wear large and elaborate pins, featuring faux chrysanthemums, ribbons, and trinkets. Growing up in Texas, Antonius is familiar with the tradition.
These mums are a celebration of Antonius’ history and background. Here, they have incorporated candles, Vietnamese altar pieces, incense, and votive paper, which is traditionally burned as an offering to one's ancestors. Through these embellishments, Antonius asserts their identity as a member of the Vietnamese American community, which has a large presence in Texas.
Alief Art House is a shipping container on the grounds of the Alief Community Garden at the Alief SPARK Park and Nature Center that will house art events curated and organized by Manalo in collaboration with other creatives who reside and work in Alief. Manalo’s vision is to create a sustainable environment for creativity, jumpstart an art-focused movement in the neighborhood, and positively impact Alief’s image. Antonius had the privilege of collaborating with Manalo on AAH through Insta11ations.
LOCATION
Alief SPARK Park & Nature Center
Beechnut & Dairy View
Houston, TX 77072
Alief Art House, featuring exhibitions curated by Artist Antonius-Tín Bui, is a transformed shipping container that highlights the cultural richness of Alief communities through curated exhibitions, murals, and happenings. Located on the grounds of the Alief Community Garden at the Alief SPARK Park and Nature Center, Alief Art House was founded by Artist Matt Manalo through the DiverseWorks Project Freeway Fellowship.
Bui’s curatorial programming for Alief Art House features a diverse range of artists and media, including: Thomas Tran’s Crocodile Garden mural and exhibition entitled Glorified Doodles 2020 (May 2020); performance of Picturesque Terrors and exhibition entitled Kumquat Gallery by Kumquat (June 2020); Intimate Restlessness featuring work by Artist Micaela Cadungog (July 2020); In the Placeless by Anh Hà Bùi (August 2020); The Black Out by Kentra Gilbert (October 2020); a group exhibition entitled Tanya Scott, Janine Pastran, Stefa Witt, and Moe Penders: A Softness Not Yet Felt (December 2020); Metamorfosis featuring work by Tania Breton (February/March 2021); and most recently Dark Nights to Brighter Days by Sam Night (April/May 2021).
Bui will continue to organize programs with Manalo at Alief Art House through 2021. Their collaboration underscores the many revolutionary shapes public art can take – featuring performances, murals, installations, and exhibitions in nontraditional locales.