Trong Gia Nguyen: My Myopia

Keenly aware of power dynamics in museum and gallery settings, Trong Gia Nguyen seeks to disturb and reinvent traditional viewing experiences. Nguyen’s series of windows replicate the familiar iron security window grates that are commonly found in older colonial homes in Vietnam. However, as they are constructed of thin wood, this version is incredibly fragile and unable to serve any purpose of security. Their design contains pleasant geometric patterns that can go unnoticed. As such, Nguyen purposefully extracts them from everyday utility. The surface facing out of each window is painted with an “imprint of the other side,” revealing parts of a sunset, evening lamp, starry sky, historical event, or other illumination that one “does not fully see,” recording missed fragments and maintaining disruption as it completes the whole. Separated from their surrounding architecture, the windows become skeletons and bare bone witnesses to the mundane, socio-political, historical, and mystical.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website