The Foliage IV Exhibition
FOLIAGE IV with the theme “How To Talk To Plants” unfolds as a series of propositions by artists, researchers, rethinking the relationships between plant life and the human world.
The exhibition takes as its point of departure the history of plantations, both within Southeast Asia, and more broadly, and offers different perspectives on these histories and presents, shifting focus between humans and plants experiences, towards a more caring and non-extractive form of relationship.
Based in Hanoi, the narrative of the show however expanded beyond geographical borders and invited the audience into a reflective and poetic journey revisiting history and contemplating the world we are living in today.
The artworks. and research materials presented form a non- linear narrative that elucidates often ignored histories, and move us to a space of feeling and being with more-than- human worlds. The projects are structured in forth sections, the first of which speaks directly to histories of plantation and plantation cultures, the second works through affective human-plant relationships, the third offers propositions for non-extractive relations between plant and human life, the forth reimagines a futuristic dystopian world where human and plant/ nature intertwining into new forms of being.
The show is a collaboration between 2 curators, Abhijan Toto and Do Tuong Linh and realized at Vincom Center for Contemporary Art (VCCA).
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From the Catalog
James Prosek’s choice to represent species only by their outlines, obscuring to the point of annihilation their leaves, skin and scales, evokes this invisiblization of the curious and shimmering beauty of nature, in favor of the prosaic description of its specific characteristics. Like the figures in the field guides, Prosek’s sea creatures all have a number.
However, these numbers do not have any key to match. This lack of information leaves the viewer wondering what is hidden behind this opacity. It is these very forms that compose the beauty of our ecosystem which James Prosek leads us to consider with a new look. Against the obsession of the “name” and against the system of classification of nature (inherited from the 19th century) to which it is related, the artist incites us to the - simple but almost forgotten - experience of seeing.
The artist proposes a return to contemplation, and to wonder in front of the multiple and complex lives that animate the world. By erasing the names of the things we observe, the artist abolishes the distance made between the human and the animal. Because to name a being is automatically to grant it a function, strengths and weaknesses that place it in a scale of value. This new position allows us to (re)take part in the life of nature in which we are resolutely anchored. The space in between is a reminder of our deep connection to the world around us, it makes us rethink our position within it: a position emptied of any idea of domination.
James Prosek is an American artist, writer and naturalist. He is a 1997 graduate of Yale University. Prosek’s work has been shown at The Royal Academy of Arts in London, The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA, The North Carolina Museum of Art, NC, The Yale University Art Gallery, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, The New York Historical Society Museum and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, among other institutions.
Abhijan Toto and Do Tuong Linh curators
September 16 – November 30, 2022
Vincom Center for Contemporary Art, Vietnam
B1-R3, Vincom Mega Mall Royal City
72A Nguyễn Trãi, Thanh Xuân, Hà Nội
Vietnam
