Para Site is pleased to present ‘Cloud Chamber’, the first institutional exhibition to survey the activities of Art Labor, a Ho Chi Minh City-based collective formed by Thao NguyenPhan, Truong Cong Tung and Arlette Quynh-Anh Tran.
The exhibition ‘Cloud Chamber’ presents Art Labor’s long-term historical research, poetic observations, and decade-long practice of relationship-building with the Jrai community in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. Alongside Art Labor’s newly commissioned and existing works, the exhibition features artwork from Jrai artists, with whom the collective has created collaborative projects since 2016, archival material from a missionary-turned-anthropologist in the French colonial period, and works by contemporary artists inspired by the region.
By reframing the region beyond its turbulent past, ‘Cloud Chamber’ looks to engage the audience in an imaginative reflection on the region’s complex history and its ongoing impact, from war, and industrialisation, to the lingering effects of missionary activity. The exhibition title ‘Cloud Chamber’ alludes to the duality of matter and antimatter reacting to one another, a concept echoed by reincarnation beliefs in indigenous cosmologies of the Central Highlands. Expanding on this duality like a gravitational field, the exhibition explores the interplay of opposing forces—regeneration and destruction, modernity and tradition, reality and dream—that continues to shape the complex dynamics and ever-changing landscape of the Central Highlands today.
Opening Reception: Fri, Aug 16, 6–8pm
Gallery address: 22/F, Wing Wah Industrial Building , 677 King’s Road , Quarry Bay