This performance is inspired by the writings of two writers, Vũ Trọng Phụng (1912-1939) of Vietnam and Yi Sang 이상 (1910-1937) of Korea. Although the writers were certainly unaware of each other, their lives shared many parallels. Each died within two years of each other at the early age of twenty-seven from tuberculosis. Living under the colonial occupation of their countries (Vietnam by the French and Korea by the Japanese,) their innovative work would not be fully appreciated even within their own homelands for generations.
Rather than narrate specific elements from literature, the performance speaks to the alienation and imagination of these distinctly modern writers through contemporary art and imagines, if these almost doppelgangers had met and collided.
This performance was developed by Ho Chi Minh City-based artist, R. Streitmatter-Tran and Seoul-based filmmaker Yoonjoo Cha and is their first collaborative work since meeting in Boston nine years earlier in 1996.
Performed at the Pocheon Asian Art Festival in 2005 under Exhibitions
DETAILS
2005
1st Pocheon Asian Art Festival
PAAF 2005