Photo documentation by Hai O, taken during the making of 𝘉ồ𝘯𝘨 𝘉ề𝘯𝘩 (𝘉𝘶𝘰𝘺𝘢𝘯𝘵) by Đoàn Thanh Toàn.

Alvin Luong in collaboration with Vicky Đỗ and Đoàn Thanh Toàn

April 1 - 27, 2023
Presented in partnership with Gallery TPW

Hours: Thursday - Saturday, 3-7pm
Opening reception: Saturday, April 1, 1-4pm

After the Cataclysm, Before the Storm is an intimate reflection on losing place and becoming placeless. The efforts of this inquiry are focused on Vietnam where history moves at a rapid cadence. Within the period of one lifetime the country has convulsed from divisive wars for liberation from French to American occupations, communist reunification and a transition to a capitalist market economy. Each transformation of Vietnam has created a place for many and has dialectically rendered many others placeless, both within the country and beyond its borders. In the future, major parts of Vietnam’s most populated cities, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and the areas around these cities are projected to be underwater as sea levels rise due to climate change. The works in this project consider being placeless from these past and upcoming upheavals.

The project took its initial formation in late 2019 when I was living with my family in the rural outskirts of Ho Chi Minh City. The land was a former battlefield and a radical commune that produced agitation propaganda against French occupation. It also served as a training ground for guerillas resisting American forces. I witnessed daily flooding on this land which grows in severity year-after-year. War and revolution made my parents refugees and I worry that climate change could render the rest of the family in Vietnam refugees too. These thoughts grew into conversations with Annie Wong, Curator of Programming and Public Engagement at Gallery TPW, who shares a similar history of being placeless from Vietnam. These conversations resulted in my residency with Gallery TPW where this project was developed.

The title of this project, After the Cataclysm, Before the Storm, points towards the present moment where the tumultuous history of Vietnam seems as observable as the country’s future in the wake of climate change. To expand the vantage point offered in the present, I have invited filmmaker Vicky Đỗ and dance choreographer Đoàn Thanh Toàn to create new artworks, as well as the curator Đỗ Tường Linh to write a new text to reflect on this project.

- Alvin Luong

After the Cataclysm, Before the Storm is an offsite project presented in partnership with Gallery TPW. The exhibition encompasses the cumulative research project by Gallery TPW’s 2022-2023 artist-in-residence, Alvin Luong.