Sourceless Waters: The Whip & The Knife (2024), Nguyễn Phương Linh & Trương Quế Chi; whip, knife, fabric, wooden platform, motors, lighting & curtain system, dimension variable.
Comissioned work for Busan Biennale 2024
Curators: Veray Mey & Philippe Pirotte
Special thanks to: Nguyễn Mạnh Đức, Đỗ Thanh Lãng, Nguyễn Hoàng Thiên Ngân, Phạm Nhật Chinh, The Ambino Company.
Technical team: Dương Văn Tuân, Nguyễn Tất Đạt, Đàm Quang Huy & Vũ Hồng Nĩnh.
[Busan Museum of Contemporary Art 2F]
Sourceless Waters: The Whip & The Knife (2024) is an installation made in collaboration. In Nguyễn Phương Linh’s The Whip the mechanical arm lashes with the slow inevitable continuity of inhalation and exhalation. The shadow created by the whip falling onto the fabric heightens the tension and drama of this kinetic installation. At the whip’s height the light in the space is at its brightest, gradually returning to darkness as it descends. Situated under a constant, intense white light a clinical atmosphere is suggested. In Trương Quế Chi's The Knife, a hand-forged knife free-falls onto a wooden counter made from the beams of an old architectural style house in Northern Vietnam, before being retracted to the ceiling. These two works may be entered separately, but share space divided by a light-blocking curtain, which periodically closes during this sequence of motion. The Whip and The Knife move in mirroring tandem through a shared rhythm. The leather whip is soft and soaring; while the knife tip is hard, pointed and plummets. Both operate on automated mechanisms exerting gravitational and centrifugal forces on surfaces using materials contrasting in forms and pliancy. Constant repetition of The Whip's and The Knife's movements in an almost unchanging environment, together with the minuscule, barely noticeable impacts of such movements, invite contemplations on violence as well as resilience, collision and circulation, weight and weightlessness, birth and decay. Each work has its own space which is then conjoined in a flood of red light. This recurring interconnectedness brings to mind the circulatory constriction and dilation of the organs in the body.