Interview with Nghia Gang, A.Farm Artist Resident
Nghia Dang [Interview]
A.Farm Artist Resident 2020
By: Claire Bloomfield
April 8th 2020
A. Farm is an international art residency in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Vietnam. “Established in 2018, A. Farm is an international art residency conceived by artists Cam Xanh of MoT+++ and Dinh Q. Le of Sàn Art, with the support of the Nguyen Art Foundation. It is located in District 12 of Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Vietnam, and consists of an exhibition room, six semi-communal studios, seven bedrooms, shared living facilities and a large courtyard. Previously a factory, its history of scent and flavour production is reimagined in a cross-pollination of art and ideas between local and international artists.”
“In the making of the works, I mostly follow the instinctive needs of the organ senses of touching, looking, balance, proportion, and relating. ”
MHM: Can you tell us a little bit about yourself as an artist?
NG: I started out with paintings like many other of my peers, but gradually the medium made less and less sense to me and the subjects I chose to pursue, so I began looking into different mediums and modes of practices to suit my need for making. For the large part of my practice, I move back and forth between sculptures, installations, and drawings. In the making of the works, I mostly follow the instinctive needs of the organ senses of touching, looking, balance, proportion, and relating.
(F): 2020, Pencil & Charcoal on paper, 85x60cm
MHM: What projects are you working on at A.Farm this season?
ND: I’m working on a series of drawings that respond to the psychological notions of fantasies and its aftermaths. I’m imagining a long journey through the liminal, transformative space between the “real” figure of the father and its “fantastical” counterpart (the father-thing), which explores and exposes the possibilities of actions, consequences, ethics and affect that exist in the relationship between “son” and “father”.
MHM: Tell us about your process and materials? How do you plan for your large scale drawings on loose paper?
Father’s Adagio #4, 2020, Pencil on paper, 21x29cm
ND: I wish I could say there’s a definite plan, with definite steps. There’s this one interview with Joseph Beuys that really sticks with me, in which he said, “ If the sole point of art was the theory and the cerebral part of it, then I wouldn’t have to make something which was to be perceived through the sense organs, then I could’ve just depicted it in a number of logical sequences.” Planning is a very cerebral thing that requires having a pre-established number of steps and checkpoints, and I don’t/ can’t really do that. Speaking about the process, there’s just two very broadly defined phases, one of “absorption” – of information through readings, films, theatrical plays, and one of “release” – onto the paper, the clay, the cardboard. I try to keep them separate to avoid too much multitasking and distraction, but they often just intersect, and the works naturally become.
MHM: What is the power of myth? How does it deepen our relationship to the world? Or how does it cause further delusions and dissociations?
ND: I find in myths and folktales a strange manifestation of our savage nature. Myth itself is a rich well of archetypes – the various primordial, other-ly figures like the Great Mother and her aspects (witches, the terrible, the bearer/nurturing), and these archetypes are built, past down, recognized and enacted by generations after generations since the first man. They are engraved in our subconscious, they shape the way we see the “others” and eventually the way we become an “other-ly” figure : a son/daughter, a mother/father, etc. Most importantly, I find that these archetypes evoke this instinctive awe in our savage selves – similar to the awe of our ancestors at lightning, seasons, the moon, the sun - an awe that then drives this need to transform the outer world accordingly to the inner. So, in a sense, myths shapes the world as it is and as perceived by us. Regarding delusions and dissociations, if that is a fault, it is not on myth’s part but on our own part for being “human, all too human,” as Nietzsche may say.
“ I find in myths and folktales a strange manifestation of our savage nature.”
MHM: Why did you switch from sculpture to drawing? How does your history in sculpture affect the way you think of drawing?
ND: As mentioned above, I routinely switch between drawing and sculpture. Most often, it is out of a natural need for a change of pace and perspective. My sculptural practice is the slower one, it takes time to adjust to space, proportion, balance, materials, etc. Drawing is the more direct one, from mind to paper with just the bare minimum. Though, whichever pace I’m taking, the two practices always inform and communicate with each other in the language of form, shadow and light, space, proportion, etc.
M-M, Installation, 2019, Burlap, cotton gauze, cotton, polymer clay, wood, cardboard, found objects , Dimensions Variable
MHM: Your drawings have many levels within them like divided worlds. What do these pocketed spaces represent?
ND: One of the things I’m currently thinking about is memories, intrapsychical images (imagined pictures), and how they cross-contaminate, inform and adapt to each other. That’s a way to approach these collaged spaces.
MHM: Why do you use the repetition of the grid in your drawings?
ND: I do those grids out of a habit to maintain control. They are also very neutral negative spaces that doesn’t convey excess information, so in a sense very pure in nature.
MHM: Your practice is based heavily on the research of Jungian and Lacanian psychology. Can you tell us more about how your current research and how this is influencing your art at A.Farm?
“Most importantly, I find that these archetypes evoke this instinctive awe in our savage selves – similar to the awe of our ancestors at lightning, seasons, the moon, the sun -, an awe that then drives this need to transform the outer world accordingly to the inner. ”
ND: Given the multitude of psychological analysis, I guess my research has always been an ongoing one , and only the point of focus changes from time to time. I’m currently focused on the potentials of fantasies as they are and at the moment of their dissolution (the aftermath). Fantasies are best described as a screen that is frozen to prevent the assault of trauma, thus the only possibility of its aftermath is a state of neurosis. I’m invested in both those stages: the stillness which preserve the pristiness of a certain figure/image, and the shattering of that stillness which brings about a different kind of revelation.
MHM: If you had an unlimited amount of money and time was irrelevant, what would you make?
ND: I will definitely think about a land art project, which is something I’ve always found awe inspiring and relatable.
MHM:. What was one of the first things you remember makings as a kid?
ND: I can only remember that I always drew a lot of trees and sometime a house in between those trees.
MHM:. Who do you look up to for inspiration?
ND: Amongst many others, Joseph Beuys is an artist that I revere and study a lot: his life, his philosophy of art and his teachings. I also take a lot of inspiration from movies, like those by Robert Bresson, Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Ingmar Bergman.
MHM: If you were an animal, what animal would you be and why?
ND: I like sphinx cats a lot: fat, hairless, sometimes short and always with an attitude. But I’m also a dog person, so it’s really hard to decide.
MHM: How can people connect with you to see more of your work?
ND: My website is www.nghia-dang.com, and I update work processes on my instagram @i___ggy
In Turin: 2020, Pencil & Charcoal on paper, 150x120cm