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Tiếng Việt
Photo credit: Thu Trần and Pho Photography
Té Tất Té Đák
takes its name from the evocative sounds of the ancient Mường epic Đẻ Đất Đẻ Nước (To Be Born from Earth and Water)—a cultural and spiritual foundation of Vietnam’s indigenous heritage. Drawing from this timeless oral tradition, artist Thu Trần reimagines the mythic birth of the world through a multidimensional language of installation, painting, and performance.
Hang Động (Cave)
is inspired by Northwest Vietnam’s limestone mountains and prehistoric sites like Núi Đọ and Đồng Nội, where traces of early life and art remain.
Rivers like the Mã and Đà symbolize origins—where mountains and water give rise to life.
These ideas are reflected in works on Dứa and Dó paper, evoking a primal link to nature and myth.
Té Tất Té Đák 7 (2024) by Thu Trần
Material: Mixed media on Dó paper
Size: 145 cm x 80 cm
Sinh Nở (Birth)
series features ten works on Dứa and Dó paper with watercolor and acrylic, reflecting a primordial world where heaven and earth were yet to form.
In this mystical space, birth emerges as a sacred, divine act—an honor bestowed upon mothers to bring life into existence.
Through 40 mixed-media works—painted, pierced, and layered across materials like silk, organza, iron, earth, and water—Thu builds a dreamlike space where myth and memory merge. From paper-based cave drawings evoking prehistoric beginnings, to textile works capturing life, birth, and death cycles, each piece offers a visual retelling of ancestral cosmology. The Mường people’s rituals, mo recitations, and spirit worlds are not only referenced but reawakened through artistic expression.
Photo credit: Thu Trần and De La Soi
Photo credit: Thu Trần and De La Soi
Installations such as Mường Trời reflect the sacred passage of the soul to the afterlife, while Bông Thau – Bông Thiếc—crafted from iron and cloth—symbolize early human discoveries of fire, metal, and divine connection. Hand-dyed garments and painted silks are not just fabric—they are memory, ritual, and embodiment.
At the heart of this exhibition is the belief that myth is not past—it is present, always living. The artist opens a portal where the spiritual and the contemporary intersect, allowing audiences to walk through generations of reverence, survival, and celebration.
READ MORE ABOUT THU TRẦN
