Dinh Q. Lê In Conversation: Crossing the Farther Shore

How does the physical act of weaving thousands of individual photographs tie together the shared experiences of Vietnamese families during the 1940s to 1980s?

Displayed for the first time in Asia in the exhibition "Living Pictures: Photography in Southeast Asia", Vietnamese American artist Dinh Q. Lê’s installation 'Crossing the Farther Shore' (2014) is a rare record of the everyday lives of Southern Vietnamese people in the pre-Vietnam war period, reflected through abandoned images collected by the artist himself.

In this artist talk moderated by art historian Roger Nelson, Dinh Q. Lê will delve into the processes and motivations behind the work, its relation to his practice in photography, his perspectives on his work in the context of the exhibition, and his involvement in the independent art space Sàn Arts, which he co-founded in 2007.

This programme took place at National Gallery Singapore on 27 January 2023 as part of the “Living Pictures: Photography in Southeast Asia” exhibition.

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About the Speakers

Dinh Q. Lê was born in 1968 in Hà Tiên, Vietnam. Lê grew up in Los Angeles, studied Fine Arts at UC Santa Barbara and holds an MFA in Photography from the School of Visual Arts in New York. In 1996, he moved from New York to Ho Chi Minh City where he now resides. In 2007 he co-founded Sàn Art, an artist-run exhibition space and reading room that promotes young Vietnamese artists. His installation, 'The Farmers and the Helicopters' (2006) was the subject of a solo exhibition in 2011 at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Lê’s work was included in the 2013 Carnegie International, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and documenta (13) held in Kassel, Germany. Dinh Q. Lê was named the 2011 Prince Claus Fund Visual Art Laureate.

Roger Nelson is an art historian and curator, and Assistant Professor of Art History in the School of Humanities at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He researches modern and contemporary art in Southeast Asia. Roger was previously Curator at National Gallery Singapore, where he co-curated "Living Pictures: Photography in Southeast Asia". He is the author of 'Modern Art of Southeast Asia: Introductions from A to Z' (2019), co-editor of Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook’s 'I Am An Artist (He Said)' (2022), and co-founding co-editor of 'Southeast of Now: Directions in Contemporary and Modern Art in Asia', a peer-reviewed scholarly journal published by NUS Press.

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About the exhibition

As the most ubiquitous visual medium of the modern age, photography has had a tremendous impact on the way we see the world and ourselves. But what do photographs do exactly? And how do they affect the world around them?

“Living Pictures: Photography in Southeast Asia” highlights the power of photography in a ground-breaking survey of the medium’s development in Southeast Asia since its arrival in the 19th century. Explore the changing roles of photography—from its beginnings as a tool of European exploration to the “performance” of studio portraits, from depicting the realities of war to the rise of fine art, and finally, to its central function within social media and virtual reality technologies today.

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Find out more about the exhibition at www.nationalgallery.sg/livingpictures

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Disclaimer

This video has been edited for clarity and concision. The opinions expressed in this video may not represent the views of National Gallery Singapore. Every effort has been made to obtain permission for the material in this video. Copyright within this video belongs to its respective owners and shall not be reproduced without permission.

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