Dear our friends,
As Shakespeare has said, "Time is very short for those who celebrate”. Now we are coming very close to the end of the project “Graffiti in the alley”, by ZeroStation and Click 9, at the quarter 288 Nam Ky Khoi Nghia, ward 8, district 3, HCMC.
For the entire 26 days of the project (from 12 July to 07 August), since the first day when all artists from Click 9 were totally new ones entering in a very unfamiliar spraying environment, and when the residents at the quarter 288 Nam Ky Khoi Nghia curiosly observed something they almost have never seen before, up to now, there has been a dialogue, sometimes explicitly, sometimes implicitly, and sometimes both explicitly and implicitly, which has taken place between both sides, They and We, the old and the new, the familiarity and the unfamiliartity.
And as philosopher Gadamer once said, the essence of all dialogues is never located at the convincing activities. At right moment it happens, the dialogue fails because this moment will automatically give birth for a situation of imposing, either implicitly by logic, or explicitly by power. For Gadamer, the dialogue means having dialogue with oneself and the other at the same time, by which, the horizons of oneself and the other are extended.
From the perspective of the organizer of the project, we have tried to make place for the existence of the others at the same time and in the same space by which, open the possibilities of the Gadamerian dialogue for both sides. We hope that it is in the process of the multi-dimensional dialogue that a new space of the translation of each other, which is named the understading by Gadamer, will be opened up automatically.
In the space of this translation, of this understanding, there will automatically be new activities such as interpretation, application, or even loan translation from which the dialogue will reach an ideal situation for all dialoguing partners, the situation of extending the horizons and then of fusioning horizions but at the same time no one gets lost in the imposing discourse, not only by the others, but also by herself in the process of trying to impose the others.
By this reason, as the organizer and the curator for this project, we have determined our main mission is to create the conditions to make the dialogue happen, where all dialoguing partners could see one another as clearliest as possible and could have enough time to listen the voice of one another, as well as could have enough space to move along the process of automatic and endless extension of the horizons along with the dialogue.
To make our word not only a theoretical blah blah, we will show here a particular example that is taken from the project. This example, to us, shows clearly that a dialogue in fact is a challenge, a pushing limit, even in the everyday life, and is not only at theoretical level.
On the third day of the project, while all artists were painting on wall, local police officer and a group of her staffs suddenly appeared and requested artists to stop painting in order to make clear the real purpose of doing this in public in such a long time. It is right there where a dialoguing moment has occurred and the different experiences have been gained. For the artist part, it has been an experience of facing with the possibility of stoping their work. For the government part, it has been an experience of an activity that “seems” to be violating their old attitudes on legal culture and art. For the residents in the alley, it has been an experience of falling into a dichotomic situation between what they have been seeing everyday, which is very interesting and funny, and what they are observing, which possibly turns to be something illegal therefore very dangerous.
At this moment of the dialogue, automatically occur the negotiations, interpretations, listenings and translatings. All these things can be seen in the interesting video clip in which we interviewed the governmental representative of the alley.
In this clip, the representative whose mission is to bridge between residents and district’s governmental office, basing on her own experience and knowledge on art and culture, not only interpreted, translated the practice of the artists in to her own knowledge and experience on culture and art, but also translated and interpreted her own old knowledge and experience on art and culture in a kind of art practice that he seemed to see completely the first time.
For the artists, this new experience partly helps them to extend their horizon of understanding, not only of graffiti, but also of the art public practice in general. Particularly, here in their process of daily painting on wall, besides all visual motives of graffiti art, a new visual element appears. One artist in the Click 9 group asked an old woman living in the alley to be his model and drew her face on big size on the wall then, the face of a kid.
For the residents in the alley, this new experience of dialogue led them to the new interpretation of art in which art and they are not two isolated islands anymore. In particular, after a long-time observation and having conversation with the artists, especially, after seeing the faces of other residents living in the alley painted on the wall, one resident proactively approached the artists to ask them to draw his wife as his gift for her birthday.
For the local government, after the dialogue with the artists and the curator, they let the project to be continued. It demonstrated perfectly the thing that, inside them, or more particularly, inside the official representatives, an interpretation or a translation has taken place. Thanks to this interpretation or translation, their horizon on art, culture has extended.
For ZeroStation ourselves, the experience of organizing and curating this project has also extended our horizon on not only our discourse of art, but also our rhetoric of practicing art in local context within our endeavor of transforming from acting to Action, or we can state it in our more favorite way of speaking (which we guess coming from our endless new experience from each new project), in the endeavor of moving between Acting and Action.
Definitely, the example above is only one (and maybe most explicit) in multiple moments of dialoguing that happen automatically at different stages of the project. We believe that if observing in a reflective way, you would see these multiple moments of translation, interpretation, and application are occurred in other domains such as in the updated pictures or video clips on our website or facebook, or in the reports on the project in different news papers, magazines or in television.
We believe that all these different interpretations, translations, and applications on the project will demonstrate very well that there is a new understanding which is operated from many corners of society, not only to graffiti art, or to the project “Graffiti in the alley”, but also to the very practice of contemporary art, to the very contemporary artists and the actual roles of these entities in the present society.
Coming back to the main purpose of this invitation letter, we would like to invite you to the closing week of the project “Graffiti in the alley”. In this closing week, from 02 to 07 August 2011, there will be two events.
The first event is from 02 to 06 of August (from 1:00 pm to 7:00 pm everyday). In these days, the artists from Click 9 will be still finishing their wall drawing outside, and at the same time, they will organize the displays of all visual and textual information reporting their whole work in the space inside of ZeroStation. The audience could come and have in person talk with the artists.
The second event is the closing party at 6:00 pm, 07 August 2011 (Sunday). This is an open party not only for the artists, the organizer, but also for all audience, especially for the residents living in the alley who have been the organic part of the project “Graffiti in the alley”.
Lastly, we would like to express our thanks to the artists, the Gaffiti Click 9, and “art workers” of ZeroStation, as well as ZeroStation’s friends who have contributed time, energy and thought to help the project to be successful.
We also would like to give thanks to the public media such as Sai Gon Tiep Thi, The Thao & Van Hoa, VTC television channel, HTV television channel, website Any Arena, Hanoi Grapevine, and Soi, and other reporters, journalists who have been interested in, supported and spreaded information of the project.
See you again in the closing week of the project “Graffiti in the alley”, and of course, in future projects by ZeroStation.
On behalf of ZeroStation team,
Artistic director
Nguyen Nhu Huy
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