The fundraising art auction will be held tomorrow starting at 1.30pm at Queen Sirikit Art Centre. Held by the “Art for Life” group founded by leading artists, collectors and businessmen, the auction is aimed at raising funds to construct a new Bt800-million emergency centre.

The “Chalerm Phrakiat HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn” emergency centre will be built at Maharat Nakhon Ratchasima Hospital. The hospital has been raising funds from hosting various events, including runs and concerts along with other donation campaigns that have so far earned more than Bt400 million.

Among the highlights is Chatchai Puipia’s 2018 oil painting “Kaewta Kwanjai” depicting the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej (King Rama IX) and HM Queen Sirikit of King Rama IX which is set at Bt400,000.

The “Mercy Mission” is the first time the hospital has raised funds by hosting an art auction – and what an auction it promises to be, given it will be conducted by Yawanee Nirandara of Christie’s auction house.

Art lovers will find 23 works under the hammer by both leading and emerging Thai artists. Works range from vivid landscapes to portraits, and from semi-abstract sculptures to conceptual mixed media works. The price range is Bt50,000 to Bt400,000.

“We expect more than a hundred collectors, including Dr Kongkiat Opaswongkarn, the founding member of the group, to bid at the auction,” said artist Somsak Raksuwan who will also help conduct the auction. “We hope all works set to be fetched on Sunday’s auction total more than Bt5 million.”

Highlights include Chatchai Puipia’s 2018 oil painting, “Kaewta Kwanjai”, depicting the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej (King Rama IX) and HRH the Queen Sirikit of King Rama IX, which is set at Bt400,000; Jakapan Vilasineekul’s semi-abstract bronze sculpture “Flora”, which is set at Bt300,000 and National Artist Ittipol Tangchalok’s 2010 abstract painting, which is set at Bt150,000.

Others are a portrait of His Majesty King Maha Vajiralongkorn created by young artist Keeyapat Katesawai, which is set at Bt70,000 and Imhathai Suwatthanasilp’s mixed media “Blue Sky Wings” depicting a butterfly made of human hair, which is set at Bt180,000.

Imhathai Suwatthanasilp’s mixed media “Blue Sky Wings” depicting a butterfly made of human hair is set at Bt180,000.

Bangkok recently became the 19th city to host a Leica Gallery, joining Milan, Los Angeles, Prague, Kyoto, Tokyo, Sao Paolo, Istanbul, and Singapore among other leading cities, and is celebrating with an exhibition of works by Pulitzer prize winning photo-journalist Nick Ut.

Located in the heart of Bangkok, right next door to the specialist camera store on second floor of Gaysorn Village, Leica Gallery Bangkok is aiming to encourage photographic exploration and appreciation and will feature works of local shutterbugs alongside those of internationally renowned lensmen while also fostering the development of photographic arts in the region.

Large and airy with more than 100 square metres of space, the gallery draws on the traditional Thai krajang pattern often seen on Buddhist painting or ancient architecture for its interior decor. Visitors can chill at the cafe area as well as admire the view from a balcony overlooking bustling Ratchaprasong.

“The decor adds special dimensions to the gallery and is ideal for the exhibitions we are planning throughout the year,” said Danai Sorakraikitikul, managing director of A-List, Leica’s sole distributor of Leica for Thailand.

“The atmosphere is elegant but welcoming. The response from Thai customers since the opening Leica Thailand two years ago has been very positive so we feel confident about showcasing the rising stars of the photographic world.”

This first exhibition titled “My Story by Nick Ut”, features 25 of the photographer’s best-known works including “Terror of War” – most often referred to as “the Napalm Girl” – his prize-winning photograph of a naked girl fleeing a napalm attack, and other images from the Vietnam War. They’re on show until the end of April.

Art director and chief representative of Leica Galleries International Karin RehnKaufmann was in Bangkok for the opening of the new gallery along with Ut himself. She told XP that alternating exhibitions by world-known lensmen with local talent had worked well since the establishment of the first venue in Salzburg, Austria a decade ago.

“Thailand has such a unique identity and concept and lots of new talents,” she continued. “The gallery will be the hub to encourage more exposure of both local and international photo arts from around the world.”

Several of those local talents turned out for the opening, among them Nat Prakobsantisuk, Tada Varich, Surachanee Limatibul, socialites were such as Tipanan Srifuengfung, Natapree Pichaironarongsongkram, Chettha Songthaveepol, Akarat Vanarat, Pattree Bhakdibutr, Charn Srivikorn and Pimpisa Chirathivat.

Wiharso is particularly known for his large-scale paintings, wall sculptures and installations. His work obstinately concentrates on his own personal experiences and culture, focusing on national identity, migration, race, political states and power conflicts.

The artist’s recent works have continued to explore themes related to migration, the Indonesian diaspora, the settlement of land, the power of ownership and the idea of belonging, through the lens of family and history.

He looks at the land and seas as a site of history and trade: the personal reasons and motivating factors that shape social systems, and the interconnections, philosophy and conflicts that still impact us today. How are the histories of migration, ecology and culture contained in our ideas and actions today? The tableaux of the family reflects a timeline of events unfolding over generations and is a narrative about cross-cultural love and compromise, examining how external pressures and expectations unfold within private relationships.

The gallery is on the 3rd floor of the Peninsula Plaza, Rajdamri Road and the exhibition continues through February 25,

Find out more at http://www.TangContemporary.com or call (02) 254 2384.

The exhibition marks 200 years of US-Thai friendship.

“The exhibit starts with the initial correspondence between US President James Monroe and King Phra Phutthaloetla (Rama II) in 1818, which laid the foundation for a vital and enduring alliance,” explains Yuthasak Supasorn, governor of the Tourism Authority of Thailand,

“The historical relationship between the two countries carries added significance given last December the number of Americans visiting Thailand annually hit the one million mark. This set a record for Thailand’s number one source market from the greater Americas’ region.

“We think both American and Thai tourists will find the exhibit fascinating as much of it will be shown to the public for the first time.”

The exhibition will include more than 50 items in the form of traditional displays, interactive multimedia, and an educational space for lectures and youth outreach.

Only a few of the gifts have ever been displayed and include contributions from the Smithsonian Institute, the US National Archives, the US Library of Congress, 10 American presidential libraries, the King Prajadhipok Institute, and the National Museum Bangkok, under the auspices of the Thai Fine Arts Department.

The exhibition will run from March 20 to June 30. Entry fee is Bt150 for adults and Bt50 for students with ID.

The US Embassy and Consulate in Thailand will host an opening gala dinner on March 23, at the Mandarin Oriental Bangkok Hotel.

Learn more at the US Embassy’s website and social media platforms using the hashtag: #greatandgoodfriends

The stirring plight of refugees across the globe – the Rohingya of Myanmar, the tens of thousands displaced by wars in Syria and Cambodia – is movingly documented in the photography exhibition “Exodus Deja Vu” at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre.

Displayed on the curving walls on the third to fifth floors are 77 images of people dislocated from their lives and homes in Syria, Bangladesh, Cambodia and other places, forced to cross borders into foreign lands and eke out dire existences in temporary camps that all too often become permanent.

Turkish photojournalist Coskun Aral was present when hostilities in Iraq in 1991 drove thousands of citizens towards Turkey. Nation/Rachanon Intharagsa

The images are the work of seven photojournalists of various nationalities, who bear witness to unfolding tragedies in a world increasingly given to nationalism and wary of foreigners.

“The touring exhibition aims to raises awareness about the current crises involving refugees around the globe,” says curator Patrice Vallette. “We hope these powerful images will speak loudly about this serious humanitarian issue.”

Conflict and persecution have forcibly displaced more than 65 million people around the world, it’s noted in the exhibition, and nearly half of them are children.

“The tragedy touching Syria now is reminiscent of refugee crises of the past, such as in Cambodia in the 1970s and more recently in Myanmar,” Vallette says.

Canadian Greg Constantine and Thailand’s Suthep Kritsanavarin focused on the calamity of the Muslim Rohingya, producing anguished black-and-white photos of the “nowhere people” being treated as beings less than human.

Canadian Greg Constantine took countless photos among the hundreds of thousands of Rohingya who flooded into southern Bangladesh in 2017.

Constantine captured the waves of Rohingya refugees feeling from Myanmar into Bangladesh last year, a massive volume of people forced into lives of desperation in jam-packed camps.

They are unsure if or when they will be able to return home, and even should the invitation come, they are fearful of returning to the threat of torture, rape and death at the hands of the Myanmar military and anti-Muslim vigilante groups.

“My years of photographing the Rohingya [since 2006],” Constantine says in the show’s catalogue, “still represent only a small window and a slice of time within decades of similar abuse.

“With nearly 75 per cent of the Rohingya community pushed out of their homeland, I am reminded of something a Rohingya man named Jafar said to me in Bangladesh back in 2009. [He said,] ‘Because we don’t have citizenship, we are like a fish out of water, flapping and unable to breathe. If we were given citizenship in Burma, we would be like that fish you catch and then throw back into the water, where he belongs. We are still out of water, and when a fish is out of water, he suffocates to death. We have been out of water for such a long time and we are suffocating. We are suffocating to death.’

“Sadly, his words are more relevant now as they were years ago.”

Thailand’s Suthep Kritsanavarin, in Aceh, Indonesia, in 2009, photographed a Rohingya refugee recovering in hospital from a two-week journey at sea without food or water.

Suthep has been watching the Rohingya since 2008, often using a drone camera to capture overviews of the situation in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, where most of the refugees lived, and at Cox’s Bazaar in Bangladesh, where most are now encamped. He’s also shot imagery of the far less-publicised Rohingya camps in Aceh, Indonesia, and Thailand’s Ranong province.

One aerial shot taken in Cox’s Bazaar offers a glimpse of what has become the largest refugee camp in the world, with more than 700 000 people enduring harsh living conditions and near-starvation.

In Ranong in 2009, Suthep took pictures of Rohingya men showing the scars of brutal beatings inflicted by Burmese navy officials after the boat they trusted to carry them to better lives was stopped in the Andaman Sea. They spent two weeks in detention before being sent back to sea, bound for Thailand, with the warning that they’d be killed if they returned to Myanmar.

UNCHR, the United Nations’ refugee agency, says there were 99,956 refugees in nine camps in Thailand as of December, most from ethnic-minority communities in Myanmar and mainly Karen and Karenni.

Harassed and endangered in their homeland, they’ve been crossing the border for more than 30 years, and thousands of babies born in the camps in four provinces along the frontier have grown into adulthood there, having never seen their country of origin.

“The Rohingya crisis is the most serious issue in Southeast Asia, with nearly 700,000 refugees having flocked to Bangladesh in the last four months, joining 300,000 others already there,” says Alistair Boulton of UNHCR.

“There are now nearly a million Rohingya living temporarily in Bangladesh. It’s the worst situation in the region and the fastest rise in a refugee population since the 1990s.”

The best solution, he says, would be for the Myanmar government to recognise the Rohingyas’ fundamental rights.

Syrian Issa Touma’s “Aleppo After War”, 2015, taken 24 hours after airstrikes emptied the district.

Syrian photographer Issa Touma was already shooting street life in Aleppo before the current momentous multinational conflict began. It’s his hometown.

People seemed lively and cheerful in his pre-2012 images, but the war has virtually emptied the city. The buildings that remain standing are pockmarked with bullet holes. The fighting has greatly affected the younger generation, with kids fond of “playing soldier” – when not sitting sullen and sad.

Malaysian Rahman Roslan pointed his camera at Syrian refugees in the Idomeni camps in Greece in 2016, where they’d been sheltered for months after Macedonia closed its border, barring migration further into Europe.

Russian Sergey Ponomarev saw Middle Eastern refugees arriving by boat on the Greek island of Lesbos in 2015.

Russian Sergey Ponomarev watched the great northerly exodus across the Mediterranean in 2015. His pictures were taken on the Greek island of Lesbos and on the boundary lines separating Croatia from Slovenia and Hungary from Serbia. Some of the shots show bloodied refugees attempting to dash across the frontiers.

Frenchman Roland Neveu’s award-winning series “Years of Darkness”, about the fall of Phnom Penh to the Khmer Rouge, has been seen before in Thailand. The guerrilla triumph drove tens of thousands of Cambodians to the Thai border.

Exhausted and in pouring monsoon rain, a Cambodian refugee rests, perhaps a day’s walk from the Thai border, in Roland Neveu’s “Years of Darkness: Nimit, Western Cambodia”, 1979. Nation/Rachanon Intharagsa

“I never imagined then that the events of 1975 would come to be labelled as ‘the Asian Holocaust of our time’,” Neveu writes in the catalogue.

Coskun Aral, a Turk, was in Iraq in 1991, when streams of citizens fled to the slopes of snowy mountains to escape Saddam Hussein’s chemical weapons and the “shock and awe” of Desert Storm. Their destination was Turkey.

They were Kurds, Yazidis, Turkmens and Assyrians, walking an enormous distance in debilitating conditions. “Many lost their lives,” Aral says. “I saw mothers and fathers carrying the dead bodies of their children.

“I hoped that I’d never witness such suffering again. Yet it’s 2016 and the suffering has never ended. The deja-vu of exodus remains the same, every now and then.”

Supported by UNHCR, the French Embassy, Asylum Access Thailand and Amnesty International Thailand, the exhibition seeks to create “a unified picture of people speaking different languages and leading different lives, but sharing the same human rights”.

The exhibition on the fifth floor also displays the belongings of refugees from Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Somalia and Palestine who immigrated to Thailand.

Piyanut Kotsan of Amnesty International Thailand acknowledges that Thais tend not to be “fond of helping refugees” and blames it on a lack of understanding.

“So we’re also doing public activities, both online and offline, to encourage more conversation about refugees and why they need our support.”

The exhibition on the fifth floor also displays the belongings of refugees from Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Somalia and Palestine who immigrated to Thailand. Nation/Rachanon Intharagsa

 THE PEOPLE MOST IN NEED

– The exhibition “Exodus Deja-Vu” at the Bangkok Art and Culture ends on Sunday. It travels next to Berlin, Munich, Paris, Geneva and Toronto.

– Asylum Access Thailand will host a discussion on “Alternative Living for Immigrant Children” on Thursday at 6pm on the fifth floor.

– Learn more on its Facebook page, and about the exhibition at “Exodus Deja-Vu” on Facebook and at http://www.BACC.co.th.

THE FACT THAT most theatre troupes in Thailand focus on specific style and content means that when some members of these groups want to work on others they need to find, or found, another collective. This is most evident during the annual Bangkok Theatre Festival (BTF) where we get to watch the only work of the year by certain groups. Some even joke that here the number of troupes, or collectives, exceed that of working artists. This is like a double-edged sword. Although it reflects a wide variety of work by professional artists, sustainability, or longevity, is a problem– we simply don’t know which Facebook page to follow.

Photo/Wichaya Artamat

Such is the case with Club Sudvisai, literally “accidental”, an annual loose gathering of theatre artists who are either affiliated with other groups or independent. Last year, they gave us a memorable evening at Democrazy Theatre Studio when their five variations on the theme and prefix “Long”, literally, “being lost” or “being obsessed with”, took us to different corners of the space. This year, they’re at Yelo House, a printing-house-turned-art-gallery-and-restaurant in Soi Kasemsan 1, conveniently located within walking distance from both National Stadium and Ratchathewi BTS stations.

Collectively called “Memoir”, the prefix for each of the four playlets is “Cham”, “remember”, and the theme is “memory”. The director and playwright drew lots, and developed each work separately with some of them even performing in a colleague’s work. For Thai-speaking audiences, this title, when pronounced instead of translated, can also mean “blurred memory”.

Photo/Wichaya Artamat

Performed in a meeting room on the mezzanine floor and watched by the audience from outside, Wichaya Artamat’s “Cham Apple ID mai dai,” literally “I can’t remember my Apple ID”, reminds us of how much we depend on our communication devices and how they influence, if not dictate, our lives. On the mezzanine in front of the exhibition’s information board on the same floor, Parnrut Kritchanchai’s “Cham duean”, “Remember the month”, pokes fun at how we, in this dominantly Buddhist society, always rely on supernatural power. In the small hallway near the studio’s main entrance, Jaturachai Srichanwanpen’s “Chamlong”, or “Mock-up”, is about a modern relationship with a sharp and smart twist towards the end. Back on the mezzanine where curtains are drawn to form a small studio, a man’s request for 100-year hibernation is denied in internationally famous film actor-cum-playwright and director Witwisit Hiranyawongkul’s “Cham sin”, or “hibernate”.

Photo/Wichaya Artamat

For people my age in whose lives a lot has happened, many moments in “Memoir”, thanks in part to clever playwriting and direction as well as apt performance, brought back both fond and forgettable memories of certain incidents and people. That said, I wish there had been more connection between the four stories and with the exhibition in the space.

And in this crucial time when there’s a shortage of rehearsal and performance space – with a few closed last year and no new ones added thus far – Yelo House has become a welcome alternative, hosting two performances at BTF last November for small audiences despite requiring great creativity in dealing with the space’s viewing limitations.

As boundaries between different genres of arts continue to blur, their spectators continue to merge and a rising number of museums and art galleries, both small and large, around the world are opening their doors late in the evening for performances as well as inviting them to share, and occasionally respond to, the exhibited works in, the visual arts space during the daytime.

In this case of “Memoir”, I was able to convince an architect friend, who rarely watches stage performance, to cut short her Bangkok Design Week itinerary and join me at another “comfort zone” art gallery. I’m sure this trend will continue.

AN IDEA FOR YOUR VALENTINE

“Memoir” continues until Wednesday, Valentine’s Day, at Yelo House.

It’s in Thai with no English translation. Book your tickets now at (089) 658 8823.

Keep track of the group at Facebook.com/ClubSudvisai

LIKE MY FELLOW critics who regularly spend evenings in the theatre, I always jump at the opportunity to watch a performance that’s not in the conventional rectangular hall.

So when a Taiwanese acquaintance told me that his Shakespeare’s Wild Sisters Group’s (SWSG) – the name is taken from character in a Virginia Woolf novel –“Caged Time” was to be staged at 10.30pm in the parking garage of the National Theatre and Concert Hall (NTCH) in the Taiwanese capital, I grabbed a flight from Hong Kong where I was attending a dance festival in the SAR to experience it.

Photo/Etang Chen

I even took an afternoon nap to ensure I would have the energy to go “Wild” that cool autumn evening. It’s also noteworthy that this group, unlike many others, is not limited to any specific theatrical style or dramatic content, although its name does suggest an experimental spirit.

Conceived by veteran director Baboo who collaborated with virtual artist Chou Yu-cheng during his artist-in-residency at NTCH, “Caged Time”, in the group’s words, is “a continued exploration of landscape narrative in which the motion of performers, deployment of props, sequencing of events and utilisation of space deliver a mixed picture of normality and anomaly, present and past, sight and spectacle, reality and representation, and, overall, a theatrical space and a reflection of social events”.

Photo/Etang Chen

Audience members were guided from the registration table near a Japanese hamburger shop, where we received the programme leaflet and instructions, to a parking entrance ramp and then onwards to many points in the almost empty garage. Spoken words, physical movements – including that of a driven car – and music told many juxtaposed stories as some audience members stood, others found a sidewalk to sit on and a few walked around to find their personal, if not favourite, viewpoint. Deftly choreographed, some actions were meant to be viewed from afar, like a long shot in a movie. The 4D experience was almost like attending a visual art exhibition, save for the fact that we were only allowed certain amount of time to view and take in each art work before being instructed to move to another point.

Photo/Etang Chen

“Caged Time” ended almost at midnight, just in time for me to catch the last MRT train back to my hotel. I sometimes use this parking garage as a walkway between the National Theatre and the Concert Hall, and now that these characters and their stories are firmly imprinted in my mind, I will never look at it the same way again.

And while “Caged Time” is site-specific, it’s not site-responsive to the contextual meaning of this specific parking garage, meaning that this performance can be replicated, with some alteration of course, at similar sites, and I’m sure it soon will.

The writer wishes to thank SWSG’s Yang Po-han for all kind assistance.

KEEPING ‘WILD’

SWSG’s “Blood and Roses Ensemble”, inspired by Shakespeare’s War of the Roses history plays will be part of the Esplanade—Theatres on the Bay’s annual “Huayi-Chinese Festival of Arts” in Singapore from February 23-25.

It’s in Mandarin with English surtitles.

Find out more at http://www.HuayiFestival.com or book your ticket at http://www.Sistic.com.sg

Exactly one month later, the group’s “Dear Life”, an adaptation of a short story by Nobel laureate Alice Munro, will be part of NTCH’s annual Taiwan International Festival of Arts.

Check it out at http://www.TIFA.NPAC-NTCH.org. For tickets, go to http://www.ArtsTicket.com.tw.

THE RESEARCH & Innovation for Sustainability Centre (RISC) that Magnolia Quality Development Corp opened in its Bangkok headquarters this year is playing a key role in improving people’s lives and protecting the environment, says its chief adviser.

Singh Intrachooto says the 990-square-metre centre just off Rajdamri Road represented a Bt200-million investment.

The aim is to support researchers in the science, engineering, arts, and industrial design as they devise environmentally and socially sustainable concepts for residential units and workplaces.

Singh calls RISC a resource for society, dedicated to reducing the impact people have on the environment.

At last week’s Bangkok Design 2018 fair, officials from the centre displayed raw “green” building materials from Thailand and overseas and shared the results of research into how plants can be cultivated indoors with the right lighting, humidiy, and temperature controls.

Indoor gardens will become more important the more urban society “goes vertical”, Singh says.

RISC is also testing technology for controlling indoor environments using IAQ sensors that measure temperature, relative humidity, volatile organic compounds and potentially harmful airborne particles.

The sensors display a red light for danger and yellow for caution and finally green for “all clear” after a cleansing system has done its work.

A system being tested for offices replaces noise pollution with the sounds of nature (sound masking system). It also reduces acoustic disruption to keep conversations private.

Lighting-design features that have been developed include circadian lighting, glare control and colour quality control. Simulation software is used to minimise disruptions to an individual’s natural circadian rhythms, thus enhancing sleep, productivity and visual acuity.

RISC designer Phetcharin Phongphetkul says all of the raw materials and innovations developed at the centre are publicly available to show and share with architects, engineers and homeowners how green concepts can provide ample choice and benefits to them and to the environment.

“We search for innovative and green products both domestically and overseas that fit the country’s environment, with the goal of increasing people’s wellbeing,” she says.

Singh says the centre has 15 researchers investigating all aspects of residential and commercial building standards with an eye to making them healthy and environmentally sound, including offices and retail and hospitality outlets.

The researchers are compiling best practices for building construction to improve residents’ and employees’ quality of life, he says. They also help property firms develop residential and commercial buildings.

“And we have an exchange programme through which we share our research with networks of people abroad who study and research healthy-living standards, such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University in the US and the Baycrest Research Centre in Toronto, Canada.

“We share knowledge and innovate together,” Singh says.

He stresses that, although Magnolia established the centre, other property developers and anyone else interested in green technology are welcome to use its “eco-material” library to help them make sensible choices on their projects.

“Our goal is to be a global research centre setting development standards for the wellbeing of all people and other living being. People cannot exit alone, we must take care of animals and other living organism in order to achieve sustainability,” Singh says.

BEST PRACTICES

The Research and Innovation for Sustainability Centre is on the fourth floor of Magnolia Ratchadamri Boulevard building, Rajdamri Road headquarters in Bangkok.

It’s open weekdays from 8.30am to 5.30pm and there is no admission fee.

Contact the RISC at 1265, extension 4, or email isc_admin@dtgsiam.com.

A highlight will be Kawai Gyokudo’s “Parting Spring” depicting cherry blossoms, which is designated as an Important Cultural Property and can be displayed only once a year, and Funada Gyokuju’s “Flowers (Image of Evening)”, a newly acquired work that is being exhibited for the first time.

The Crafts Gallery has a rare collection of ceramics, lacquerware, textile and metal works narrating the 100-year-plus history of modern Japanese art.

The exhibition is timed to coincide with the period when cherry blossoms are in full bloom at the Chidorigafuchi Park, one of Japan’s best cherry blossom-viewing spots.

The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo will add in a special “Momat’ series in which about 200 works from its collection of more than 13,000 works are displayed with English explanations during each of the exhibition periods.

Audio guides in English, Chinese and Korean are also available. The “Room With A View” observation lounge offers a panoramic view of the nature-rich Imperial Palace and skyscrapers.

Find out more at http://www.Momat.go.jp/english.

“Alluvium” focuses on artworks that belong to projects in progress and have not yet been seen (or rarely seen). These alluvial pieces should be considered on their own merits but also important stepping-stones linking where one has been with where one is heading. They give further insights into and provide new angles to look at past works as much as nurturing possible futures.

Varied as they are in expression, the exhibited works can be thematically divided into two sets. There are those that look out into the wilderness exploring elements that can be regarded as spiritual or alchemical, that go beyond the everyday. Others have more of a human presence dealing with the many events currently unfolding.

The participating artists are Nadege David, Do Thanh Lang, Ha Manh Thang, Hoang Duong Cam, Hoang Nam Viet, Le Hoang Bich Phuong, Sandrine Llouquet, Nguyen Huy An, Nguyen Manh Hung, Nguyen Quang Huy, Trong Gia Nguyen.

The geological term “alluvium” refers to sedimentary matter washed onshore by flowing bodies of water. Often teeming with valuable ores continually picked up and dropped as a river gallivants on its seaward course, deposits of alluvium richly fertilise the grounds in which they find themselves and, one might assume, begin to give rise to life-forms.

The exhibition runs until March 24. The galleru is in Dakao, District 1 of Ho Chi Minh City. Find out more at http://www.GalerieQuynh.com