Nguyễn Thị Thanh Mai, Black Landscapes, 2018-20, single-channel digital video, color, sound, 8′.
“In Black Landscapes, 2018–20, a single-channel video guides us through a series of dusky, neon-lit sites where floating residences used to be anchored along the Mekong. These haunting landscapes are accompanied by the soundtrack of an old shaman’s scratchy prayer for fish to return to the lake, rendering all the more acute the absence of the houses’ inhabitants—now persistent apparitions who invite us to contemplate the porous validity of national borders.”
Image of artwork provided by Nguyễn Art Foundation.
Read the full review on Artforum here.
