REINCARNATIONS OF SHADOWS (Moving-Image-Poem)

2023 ongoing

Two channels video installation

Produced by Pirelli HangarBiccoca in collaboration with Foundation In Between Art Film

The new video is inspired by the historical figure of Diem Phung Thi (1920-2022), a Vietnamese female sculptor whose presence materializes through fragments of interviews and is also evoked in the flow of subtitles citing texts that Thao Nguyen Phan drew from Diem Phung Thi personal archive. Through a delicate and sincere narrative, the work connects the private and public dimensions of the modernist artist’s life, letting her silent but deep desire for resistance and freedom emerge. The two screens, arranged vertically one next to the other, are a direct reference to the classical portrait tradition in art history, while the images are rhythmically accompanied by the sound of the dan tranh, a traditional Vietnamese string instrument.

Phan explained, «I would like to further develop the relationship between moving images and drawings, how the act of drawing can coexist in the video medium as an ecosystem, and to continue to explore the poetic relations within pioneering female artists in post-colonial geographies—a hidden part of art history that shapes how we are and what we will become. »

- written by Lucia Aspesi and Fiammetta Griccioli