THE QUIET IN THE LAND ART AND EDUCATION PROJECT
FEBRUARY-MARCH 2005

ARTISTS: DINH Q LÊ AND NITHAKHONG SOMSANITH
IN COLLABORATION WITH ANTHROPOLOGIST CATHERINE CHORON-BAIX

In February and March 2005, the internationally recognized Vietnamese artist Dinh Q. Lê and Lao artist Nithakhong Somsanith developed an art project in collaboration with Dr. Catherine Choron-Baix, an anthropologist at the CNRS, Laboratoire d'Anthropologie Urbaine, in Paris.

Both artists take inspiration from their Southeast Asian roots for their creations, and are concerned with textile and traditional arts and handicrafts of their homelands. Both are also deeply preoccupied with memories of the past. Lê's works remind us of the Vietnam War and the Khmer Rouge regime. Somsanith wants to preserve the antique techniques and symbolic meanings of his art, as part of the Lao cultural heritage. Their collaboration in this project challenges them to confront their approaches to their homeland traditions, to their images of the past, and to allow them to create together and produce new works of art that will tell something new and strong about their culture to the people of Luang Prabang, and to the Lao people in general.

They were both struck by the necessity for Lao people, especially the younger generation, to communicate with the past, and decided to work on the coexistence of tradition and modernity in present-day Laos. Their first work, which is now almost finished, deals with this by representing the banners of the cremation ground. In Lao funeral rites, these banners are meant to help the deceased persons to find their way to the "other" world (during the transmigration process). The birds and fishes that are on top are the very symbols of that journey. Somsanith and Lê worked with this symbolism to express the necessity of a link between the younger generations and their ancestors. Another work is in gestation, and the completed project will consist of seven works of gold and silver thread embroidery on silk, to be exhibited in Luang Prabang in October 2006 and possibly in New York at the end of the project in 2007. In Lê's words:

I found a community that is going through a very difficult and confusing transitional process. They are under conflicting pressure from all sides to change, to modernize and yet also to stay the same. Not many are asking what the Lao people want.

What Nith and I are trying to do is to make artwork that reflects this difficult transitional period in Luang Prabang. We are trying to show that the old and the new can co-exist together. In the first work, we use the traditional funeral banners as our main motif to talk about death, the death of some traditions as they are being replaced by new ones. The next work will be about a new tradition and a new motif in the landscape of Laos, the satellite dish.

For us the satellites are about hope. We believe that for the first time in Lao history, information from many sources is coming into people's living rooms across the country. Not all information is good but for the first time, there is a variety of sources of information for people to choose. The satellites open a window to the world for the Lao people. For us the two artists, the satellites are a beautiful sight.

Dinh Q. Lê was born during the Vietnam War, which would become a major theme of much of his work as an artist. He studied art and photography in California, returning to Vietnam in 1992 for the first time since leaving as a child, and now spends his time between Ho Chi Minh City and California. He has created works in a variety of mediums, and is perhaps best known for his series of "photo-weavings." Using a method he learned while weaving grass mats with his aunt, he weaves together strips cut from large photographs and carefully burning the edges of the weavings to fuse the strips together and create a finished border. His work invites people to participate in the remembering process and to explore the concept of memory.

Nithakhong Somsanith was born in Luang Prabang and is one of the few practitioners of its courtly tradition of gold-thread embroidery, which he learned from his family. He started to embroider and paint in Laos, but his artistic work became more intense after he moved to France, where he now lives in Paris. There he studied the visual arts, as well as pursuing studies in psychopathology. He first returned to Laos in 1997 after an absence of eleven years, and began to take inspiration in the landscapes of his childhood and the frescoes of the monasteries. He made a series of seven dresses in the style of the court, dedicated to ancient princesses of his family. Deeply rooted in the memory of the past, his art is a form of worship to his ancestors. The subjects of his paintings mainly concern Buddhism and the Sangha of Luang Prabang. He has made drawings of the sixty main monasteries of the city, which is an important inventory of Lao religious architectural heritage.

Dr. Catherine Choron-Baix, who has been studying Lao culture for more than twenty years, witnessed their collaboration with the aim of analyzing their collective productions and the underlying intentions. She interviewed the artists, France Morin, students, weavers, and Achan Luk, the Director of the Luang Prabang School of Fine Arts, to have a general view of all participants' understanding of the project. Considering the link between artistic creation, spirituality, and rituals in Lao tradition, she is observing the changes that are presently occurring. She will discuss the status of the artist in Lao society today and observe the conversion of young Lao artists to contemporary art. She is involved, with Somsanith, in the preservation of Lao heritage, and directed the film Memories of Gold, Memories of Silk about his work. This film was shown almost every day at the Project House during their stay, to audiences including fifty students and teachers of the School of Fine Arts, thirty novices and monks of the UNESCO Cultural Survival and Revival in the Buddhist Sangha project, a general audience of fifty people, the Director and Deputy Director of the Museum, the Deputy Director of the Department of Information and Culture, representatives of Heritage House, NGOs, teachers, young embroiderers, weavers, and other interested people. Lê also showed his work and gave detailed explanations of the meaning and the way he creates it. Both artists gave presentations of previous works, with drawings, books, and other teachings in contemporary art. This profound interaction with the local community through presentations, discussions, and meetings at the Project House and elsewhere continually stimulated awareness of the value of the artistic traditions of Luang Prabang, and an understanding of the way artists may use them, reproduce them, or reinterpret them, in creating new works which preserve their original cultural values.

The intimate participation of the artists, Choron-Baix, Morin, and other project collaborators in the daily life and ceremonies of the neighborhood of the Project House was especially significant, and demonstrated the essential presence of art in the lives of the local people of Luang Prabang.

Other meetings included a visit to the Luang Prabang National Museum with the Director and Deputy Director, meetings with representatives of the Department of Information and Culture, representatives of Heritage House, with Ralph Samuelson, Director of the Asian Cultural Council, and with weavers in the tradition of gold-thread embroidery and at Ban Phanom.

Somsanith has been invited by The Quiet in the Land to return to Luang Prabang in November 2005 to design the installation of its weaving textiles competition and exhibition of Lao historical textiles at the Luang Prabang National Museum. He also began to develop plans for a future school of embroidery.

The special bonds the artists made with the local community will be an essential element of future phases of the project as it continues to explore the coexistence of tradition and modernity—a theme at the heart of present-day life in Luang Prabang.