Hanoi: Time is Rubber

In late February 2014, I was invited to Viet Nam to join a group of artists in Hanoi where I did a series of outdoor interventions with paper. I preserved some of the paper material that was not recycled from the Taipei work "Coronator". The paper was cut and mended into one city-block long continuous strip, and installed opportunistically in various locations around the city and countryside of Hanoi in northern Viet Nam.

The work was to dream about the way stories and history (and therefore personal realities) are recounted by imposing discreet lines that separate past from present, self from other. The work more locally was intended to comment on land use, culture and economics, where there is detrimental profit for the need to see things from competitive sides. Moreover, this paper intervention is improvisational and minimal enough to foster political overtones open to interpretation.

Ham Rong Bridge (b&w photo) below by Vo Anh Khanh, 1972, National Geographic Books. All other photos by Jim Ovelmen and Pham Huy Thong, 2014.