PLATTENLOTUS (2022-23)
Multimedia installation includes:
PLATTENLOTUS
Video with sound
6’
Haiku for Vinh
Video, silent
2’
Vinh - The Ideal Communist
Ink, Yupo translucent paper on found old map
80 x 60 cm
Installation in Asia Culture Center in collaboration with vn-a studio
PLATTENLOTUS is a thought provocation speculatively acting out the enchantment of utopic promise. As part of Tran’s ongoing project Eugenics of The Cold Flowers, exploring the alternative history of a Third World country, the gist of PLATTENLOTUS suggests a historical reference coming from the combination of platte and lotus. Platte stands for plattenbau (a compound word –platte-bau meaning slab construction/house), historically implying a house development programme in 1970s East Germany. Plattenbau was later introduced to Vietnam, resulting in the establishment of Quang Trung Housing Estate in Vinh. As the meaning of plattenbau symbolises the communist public housing approach by using prefabricated modular components to serve the massive demand for accommodation, lotus hints at the nationalistic spirit of Vietnam. PLATTENLOTUS is a worldview that visualises its domination through an urban plan without capitalistic senses of privatisation while championing Vietnamese nationalism without individuality. (Fang-Tze Hsu)
Commission by Asia Culture Center Gwangju, with support from Art in Networks — The GDR and its Global Relations, Technische Universität Dresden