Aiii Sài Gòn Hông?

Author

Jackie TaFollow
Ngoc Uyen Phuong TaFollow

Date of Award

12-2022

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Fine Arts (MFA)

Department

Visual Arts

Committee Chair/Advisor

Todd McDonald

Committee Member

Beth Lauritis

Committee Member

David Detrich

Abstract

“Aiii Sài Gòn Hông?”

In Saigon, “Ai… hông?” is a phrase that street vendors often shout to advertise what they sell for the day. This body of work, “Aiii Sài Gòn Hông?” (Translates: “Saigon, anyone?”) invites the audience to take a glimpse into the vivid everyday life in contemporary Vietnam through a perspective of a Saigon local. Utilizing the modalities of painting and sculpture, I collect, accumulate and organize parts of the streets and marketplace by manipulating and amplifying certain key visual elements. The goal of the work is to reconstruct an experiential space that speaks not only to the visual, but also to sound and time elements.

Throughout this exhibition, I investigate a range of physical embodiments. Each painting brings the audience into a different Vietnamese public space experience. Experimenting with painting media and other miscellaneous materials like cardboard, vinyl, and plastic sheets gives me a chance to portray Vietnamese daily life through varied sensory perceptions. Also included in the exhibition is a collection of 30 paintings done en Plein-air inside traditional markets of Saigon, aka.“chợ”. The time-consuming process of painting is my attempt to study and understand what happens in Vietnamese spaces of the time I live. Knowing Saigon at its heart, while being away from it for some time gives me the opportunity to dig deeper into each element that makes Saigon the way it is in my memory. In my thesis, I will discuss how various materials and modes of embodiment add to the storytelling, concept and process of my practice.

Recommended Citation

Ta, Jackie and Ta, Ngoc Uyen Phuong, "Aiii Sài Gòn Hông?" (2022). All Theses. 3955.
https://open.clemson.edu/all_theses/3955