Art Labor
Vietnam
 

Art Labor will recreate a Hammock Café serving traditional Vietnamese coffee, akin to the many itinerant roadside-resting spots of the Central Highlands of Vietnam.

Art Labor

1 December - 13 December 2015

Art Labor will recreate a Hammock Café serving traditional Vietnamese coffee, akin to the many itinerant roadside-resting spots of the Central Highlands of Vietnam. The café will be a place for visitors to sit together, chat, rest, observe, think or simply pass time, alluding to the café culture central to Vietnamese daily life. The name Jarai Dew Hammock Café is an introduction into Art Labor’s long-term project. That takes inspiration from the Jarai people of Vietnam’s Central Highlands and their philosophy on the cycle of life. After death, humans will go through many stages to get back to their origins of existence. The final stage is that they transform into dew (ia ngôm in Jarai language) evaporating into the environment – a state of non-being – the beginning particles of a new existence.

Images
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Arjuna Neuman, 6 January – 3 April 2015, Courtesy the artist.
Arjuna Neuman, 6 January – 3 April 2015, Courtesy the artist.
Arjuna Neuman, 6 January – 3 April 2015, Courtesy the artist.
Arjuna Neuman, 6 January – 3 April 2015, Courtesy the artist.
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Contributors
Art Labor
Art Labor
Curator-in-Residence
Vietnam

Art Labor is an artist collective. Comprised of artists Phan Thao Nguyen and Truong Cong Tung, and curator Arlette Quynh-Anh Tran, Art Labor works across visual arts and social sphere. In December 2015, Art Labor were Artists-in-Residence at NTU CCA Singapore where they recreated a Hammock Café serving traditional Vietnamese coffee, similar to itinerant roadside-resting spots for drivers and passengers along provincial highways of the Central Highlands in Vietnam. The name Jrai Dew Hammock Café relates to the philosophy of Jrai people of Vietnam’s Central Highlands, according to which, in the last stage of life cycle, humans evaporate into the environment and transform into “dew,” a state of non-being (ia ngôm in Jrai language).