Apparently unfortunate juxtapositions like this occur when online ads are somehow keyword driven. It's unfortunate and disturbing yet very telling. Click the image to view my original screenshot.

CET is currently in Japan and was in London during last summer's catastrophe in Myanmar. We are hopeful that her family is safe in Rangoon.

Symposium on Modern and Contemporary Vietnamese Art
May 15 - 19, 2008
Held in conjunction with National Heritage Board Vietnam Festival and
Post- Đổi Mới: Vietnamese Art after 1990s (12 May - 28 Sep 2008)

"Sharing an equally important platform as the exhibition, SAM is organising a three-day symposium to explore the developments that have taken place in Vietnam. The presentations will cover the rise of modern art from the French Colonial period to the experimental art movement in present-day Vietnam. Speakers from the United States, United Kingdom, France, Australia, Vietnam and Singapore will be examining the differences in the developments that have taken place in the North and the South."

CET and I discovered this evening that our project has been accepted for the Singapore Biennale 2008. It will be our first major collaboration. We have been doing research for the project for the last months and in conversation with curator Joselina Cruz over the concept and logistical details. Thanks Joselina for supporting our idea. We know it wasn't easy.

I was happy to reunite with Shanghai-based curator Biljana Ciric and artist Jin Shan in Saigon for the first time since the Venice Biennale. Arriving Sunday evening and departing for Phnom Penh on Tuesday, Monday was a marathon of meeting local artists and spaces, ending in exhausting 3 am chat in my apartment with Chaw Ei and visiting artist Hai Minh.

Chaw Ei shares her work with Biljana and Jin Shan

Art and bed talk

(L-R) Me, Jin Shan, Biljana, Hai Minh

Biljana and Chaw Ei

Out with the old, in with the new. I've been simultaneously playing catch up while trying to relax. Sorting through the detritus of 2007. Evidently, it's the year of the rat and this is my year. I've risen from winter hibernation and now that the new year has begun (by this I mean Tet, or Lunar New Year since I've already reneged my Gregorian calendar New Year's resolutions), I'm back to blogging after two months.

Saigon 2008 has been busy with visitors and conversation including Russel Storer, now with the Queensland Art Gallery; Joselina Cruz of the Singapore Biennale, Joyce Fan with the Singapore Art Museum and most recently curator and critic Jang-un Kim.

I participated in a panel discussion, Living the Local, at Galerie Quynh in January. It has in many ways changed my attitude toward art production in this city. The event was organized by curator Zoe Butt during her Asialink residency and she has since returned to The Long March Foundation in Beijing. Fantastic conversations, all of them.

Writing and Writhing
There's been a concerted effort to stick to meeting deadlines, often only by the skin of our teeth. I recently finished a performance art proposal that if accepted, will allow me to return to the United States for the first time in four years. I may return home to find my mother has adopted another child to replace me. Hiroko Kikuchi and I have developed a performance work, that strangely seemed effortless and completely in line with our recent individual work despite not having met in nearly 5 years. This evening, CET and I finished an installation art proposal.

I've committed to writing two papers and one article for 2008 for different organizations. One for the Singapore Art Museum and the other for the Mekong Project Journal.

Lifelong Learning
I've decided that I will spend much of 2008 trying to learn new things. Like the things that fall under the category "before I die". So, I've bought a guitar and started a garden. Now how's THAT for productivity! A bunch of us have decided to pool our knowledge in group tutorials. Tammy Nguyen has volunteered to kick start the learning with a day of mixing pigment to create homemade gouache and oils. We're even going to make egg tempera! Yummm.

I'm also continuing my double life as a university lecturer and to keep the new new, I've made a completely new course reader for my class, updated with contemporary design and art texts. I'm actually proud of that.

CET has been painting and shaping up her art travels. We spent last night experimenting on how to make traditional Burmese architectural models out of the left overs from packaging styrofoam. We now have a temple. Tomorrow she has a meeting with the Asian Cultural Council at 8:30 am. It's 4:30 am now. Even with the coming a new year, some bad habits are hard to break.

If it still does not makes sense, an article on VietnamNet explains:

Some say the agency should issue a list of banned songs instead of licensed songs, because the number of banned songs is often less than licensed ones. However, Cuong said the list of those banned may not have songs written before 1975, which are not made public yet.

Did anyone say Sing Sing?

Source:
VietnamNet. Agency to issue list of permitted songs

I haven't been posting entries as frequently. I think facebook and twitter are eating into my blogging passion. Anyhow, here are some pre-holiday updates.

Visiting Artists and Curators

This week Saigon was visited by curators representing two exhibitions that will occur in Singapore 2008. I met with Joselina Cruz, curator for the Singapore Biennale 2008, last Tuesday. After visiting several artists and spaces that afternoon, Joselina met with Zoe Butt, of the Long March Foundation, the following day before departing for Hanoi. Zoe is a current Asia Link researcher with San Art, where on Friday she gave a presentation on LMF at the space. On behalf of the Singapore Art Museum, curators Boi Tran Huynh-Beattie and Patricia Levasseur de la Motte are in Saigon finishing their curatorial research for an exhibition in early 2008.

This weekend, I spent some time with Rachid Ouramdane and his project 'Distant...' which will arrive this May at the Dance Theater Workshop in New York City. Sharaad Kuttan, who I met in Bangkok this October at the Prana exhibition at Chulalongkorn University is in Hanoi. Thanks Lucy for introducing him to the arts community there.

Research and Print

Although I've been resisting writing in order to concentrate on art production, I've agreed to author two papers for 2008. The first for the Mekong Art and Culture Project, slated for publication in 2009 and secondly, another to be presented at a symposium at the Singapore Art Museum in the spring 2008.

Mogas Station

Mogas Station is currently participating in the latest incarnation of the Migration Addicts project at the Shenzhen & HongKong Bi-city Biennale of Urbanism and Architecture. In October, Mogas Station met with the New Delhi-based Raqs Media Collective and has contributed to the forthcoming volume of the Sarai Reader. We are keeping our fingers crossed that our recent project proposal, 848FM, will make the short list of candidates for funding from Arts Network Asia.

This blog has been the media companion to my moleskine sketchbooks. The diacritic site has yet to include my portfolio. In the meantime, I'm hosting select images and works at this amazing site for artists called wooloo. If you're looking for updated information on recent work, please do head over to my profile there.

wooloo.org: streitmatter-tran

Let's hear it for the boys! The spineless men's club that is ASEAN has resisted international pressure to take a strong position on Myanmar - that is, except the Philippines. President Gloria Arroyo has just announced that unless some real demonstration of change can be verified, the Philippines is unlikely to ratify the ASEAN charter. Arroyo further states, "If Myanmar signs the charter, it is committed to returning to the path of democracy and releasing Aung San Suu Kyi." She is alone in taking a definitive stand on Myanmar , and ironically, alone in acting to defend the very bylaws of the charter itself and its explicit call for democratic reform among its member nations. As sexist as this is going to sound, is the female leadership within ASEAN the ones with balls? Really.

Just weeks ago, it all but spelled doom for any ASEAN pressure on Myanmar. ASEAN rejected a boycott of the annual Burmese gemstone trade conference while gently dismissing Myanmar as a "troubled child". ASEAN's Secretary General, Ong Ken Yong invokes the simplicity of "asian values" by stating "Myanmar is part of our family, and it is the principle involved. If you have a troubled child, do you say, 'Go out of the house, I don't want to talk to you?'" Vietnam's new ceremonial seat on the UN Security Council is backed by its rock solid track record with Myanmar of looking the other way (dare it look upon itself).

"(Myanmar) PM Thein Sein took this occasion to congratulate Viet Nam on its election as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council in the 2008-09 term. (Vietnam) PM Dung thanked Myanmar for its enthusiastic support for Viet Nam's run for the UN Security Council post and said he hoped Myanmar will continue cooperating with Viet Nam in activities at the UN." - Vietnam Net Bridge

Myanmar's generals have also nothing to fear for either west or east, as neighboring Thailand and Bangladesh are themselves under rule by military juntas. China to the north and India to the south remain among its largest trade partners.

Alone is the Philippines and I hope they Arroyo can maintain the courage to stand up to the frat party that is the ASEAN leadership and to press upon them that ASEAN's legitimacy demands that they follow the bylaws of very charter they so eagerly want to ratify.

References

+ ASEAN. Statement by Ambassador Vanu Gopala Menon, Permanent Representative of Singapore to the United Nations, on Behalf of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), at the Security Council lOpen Debate on "The Role of Regional and Sub-Regional Organisations in the Maintenance of International Peace and Security", Security Council Chamber, 6 November 2007
+ BBC. Burma warned over ASEAN charter.
+ Vietnam Net Bridge. Myanmar PM to visit Vietnam to boost cooperation. November 9, 2007.
+ Vietnam Net Bridge. PM emphasizes consolidating ties with Myanmar. November 10, 2007.
+ International Herald Tribune. Myanmar casts shadow over Asean talks

Can there be any more of an appropriate space? Named just for me?

The Land Foundation arts organization, based in Chiang Mai. Closed. Dammit!

Chaw Ei and Som at the Land Foundation

Mao can sell anything

After finding the Land Foundation closed, ice cream was in order. Chaw Ei and Som at iBerry.

Chaw Ei at Starbucks. One of many times.

AliceIn is the proposal of Wonderful District for the exhibition Le mois de l'image in October 2007 in Ho Chi Minh City. Although there will be one artist intervention per day, AliceIn will be conceived as an autonomous work that can stand alone.

Situated at the intersection of varying themes researched by the the collective's artists - including architectural hybrids, cohabitation of nature and new technologies, and the idea of nomadism - the organic structure will be at the same time sculptural and functional, using both high and low-tech materials. These characteristics will be accentuate a playful contrast between interior and exterior. AliceIn was designed by Olivier Llouquet and Tam Vo Phi. Artist participants were Richard Streitmatter-Tran, Nguyen Nhu Huy, Robert Cianchi, Betrand Peret and Sandrine Llouquet.

Constructing the AliceIn bamboo frame. HCMC Fine Arts University

Interior of AliceIn installation at Galerie Quynh.

* Images Credits: R. Streitmatter-Tran, Tuyet T. Nguyen

"Future of Imagination 4" intends to cross-examine performance and live art practice within the international context. Featured this year are guest artists from Germany, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Scotland, Poland, South Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, as well as Singapore artists.

It is a curated performance art gathering of artists whose works has questioned or attempt to share a continuing interest in the cultural constructs of identity in the global situation and current trends of contemporary art practice. In the present age of intense globalization we as artists organizers sincerely believe that such an event will help increase international cultural exchange and understanding as well as being an accentuation of our artistic practice, research and development.

The artists will make live presentations to articulate ideas and engage the audience in a sincere, revelatory and immediate form. We also hope to stimulate discussion by holding forums to question the status of performance art in our rapidly changing society."

The scene and the beginning of the performance. Image credits: Lynn Lu

Before taking off to Singapore for FOI4, I had the idea to create something for the performance using bones. Only the idea had occurred to me only days before my flight. I had no idea how long it takes to clean and dry bones. Anyhow, I will use the bones for an upcoming project.

Below are post-machinated calf bones drying on my patio. Maybe one more month of drying to go. In Vietnam you can purchase a whole calf carcass (sans meat and head) from a restaurant for 30,000d/$2 a kilo. I settled for about 10 kgs. I didn't have an animal killed, I basically bought material that would have gone to the trash. I hired my neighbors to separate the carcass and boil overnight to remove as much remaining meat as possible. Then it takes about two weeks of machination in a barrel of water for the bacteria to clean of the non-bone stuff. As the bacteria consumes the material, grease rises to the top. Dump the water in the garden and refill every couple of days. I'm currently having them sun-bake on my patio for another month or so to dehydrate and harden.

As macabre as it may seem, the forms and design of how each fit together to form a structure is simply beautiful.