Le Thua Tien
Journey to Inner Peace Installation and Sculpture from a Buddhist Perspective
Master of Fine Arts
College of Fine Arts
University of New South Wales
2008
Table of Contents
Introduction 2
Chapter 1: An Autobiographical Sketch 4
Chapter 2: A Spiritual Framework for an Artistic Practice 9
Chapter 3: An Evolving Creative Process 32
Chapter 4: Three Current Projects 55
Conclusion 69
Acknowledgements 72
Illustrations 73
Bibliography 77
1 Introduction
My Master of Fine Arts research project focuses on installation and sculpture that embodies the themes of Buddhism and War. My artwork examines how the two themes interact and influence each other. Making art, for me, is an intensely personal process of rediscovering myself. The project is an attempt to create a visual conversation between my personal experiences, memories and imagination. In particular, I explore the collective memory of the people of Hue in relation to the immediate past, and the longer historical heritage of the city and the region.
Chapter One provides a background to my personal experiences of growing up in Hue, Vietnam, during a time of war. This is a relevant starting point as these experiences have shaped my life and my art practice. This chapter begins with my childhood and charts my journey into art education. Visual art is the form and methodology by which I can best express my thoughts, dreams, and reflections. Through sculpture I can share my own vision and thoughts with people from different cultural backgrounds, ideally reaching beyond existing socio-cultural boundaries. It is a personal journey that has led me toward the path of re-discovering my inner world and awakening a forward-looking perspective.
Chapter Two explores the influence Buddhist philosophy has on my art practice. This chapter also discusses the work of four contemporary artists who are primarily concerned with themes of Buddhism and war. Through this research I explore how the philosophy of Buddhism gave me a new perspective on how an artist can live completely in the present, while building a bridge between the past and the future through creative practice. Buddhism is a process of everyday transformation; in practice it is an attempt to forge new beginnings in every facet of daily life.
2 Chapter Three discusses my earlier sculpture and installation artworks. I then examine how this led me to collaborate with other international contemporary artists who share a common aesthetic or theme.
Chapter Four examines my current art practice and discuss how I see it shaping my future art practice.
3 Chapter 1
An Autobiographical Sketch
I was born in the traditional cultural capital of Hue, Vietnam in 1964, the "Year of the Dragon". This was the second year of the Vietnam War escalation (1963- 1969) so it is easy to understand how it would come to have a big influence in my life. Some of my most vivid early memories of childhood are from the ‘Tet Offensive’ of 1968. Tet, the Lunar New Year based in Chinese tradition, is also a time of celebration for the Vietnamese people, and additionally serves as the most cherished time of the year. The farmers finish their fall harvest and start preparing for the new cultivation season. It is the end of winter, spring is approaching and it is always the time for family gatherings throughout the country.
The Vietnamese people believe that during this sacred time their ancestors’ souls will be able to return to visit their home and family. Every family celebrates this special occasion through worshiping at altars, practicing specific rites and welcoming their ancestor's souls in their spiritual visitation. At that time, as was the custom, every house celebrated Tet by exploding fireworks at start of the Lunar New Year, but in the spring of 1968, the New Year celebration started with the horrible sounds of cannons, rockets and gunfire. Both the North Vietnamese and the Americans devastated the entire city of Hue, during the first major "set pitched battle" of the Vietnam War.
I was four years old. I was too young to understand what the war was about. Among those 5300 civilians who were killed that New Year, were my mother and my tiny infant sister, only a tender eleven days old. They were both killed by napalm as they ran for safety from the hospital due to rumors that the hospital was going to be bombed. That experience of loss has influenced every fiber of my being and shaped every step forward in my life.
4 Since then, my family has not celebrated Tet properly as most other Vietnamese families do. In fact, thousands of other Hue families don’t celebrate Tet at all because of their immense loss during the War. I did attend ceremonies at the Temple of Healing in Hue where an annual ritual is held to commemorate the victims of three Indochina Wars since 1945, whose souls were ripped from their bodies by tragic deaths. These souls are known as “vong” in Vietnamese, or “lost soul”, and Buddhist ceremonies demonstrate how Buddhism and Taoism can help to heal “lost souls” as well as the people who survived but still struggle with the lingering effects of the intense trauma.
Figure 1.1 Hue, February 24, 1968. Members of the US 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment move through a secured part of Hue as the battle for the city winds down.1
The old imperial city Hue has a unique cultural identity and a rich and turbulent history. It is a city of scholars and it is home to five universities. Most of Hue’s population is devoted to Buddhism and numerous famous pagodas more than a century old were built around the city. In Thua Thien Hue area villages have their own communal houses, a temple devoted to its founder, Buddhist pagodas and
5 family or clan shrines. These many sites of ritual observance show that the people of Hue always attach great importance to and respect for spiritual life. It is for this reason that religious structures and buildings serving traditional beliefs were constructed in many places throughout the city. While the other big cities like Saigon and Hanoi continue to change rapidly, Hue continues life at a slow tempo. Hue is like a ‘jewellery box’ preserving its precious culture through centuries.
Hue College of Arts (HCA) was founded in 1957 and is one of three fine art faculties in the country. Since its foundation, HCA has served as the main artistic center for Central Vietnam. I was fortunate that I was admitted into HCA in 1982. During this period there were only two options after high school. One either entered the University or had to enlist in the military and probably be sent to one of two potential conflict zones on the Chinese or Cambodian border, during the Third Indochina War.
At that time, the official academic program was strongly dominated by Soviet Socialist Realist aesthetics while both the French and English languages were forbidden. However, the French academic influences remained embedded at HCA through the numerous Vietnamese lecturers/artists who had trained in Europe during the previous decades. This ‘forbidden’ cultural tradition lived on through clandestine or private connections between lecturers and their students, using foreign books- well outside the ‘official program’. Nevertheless, the Soviet influence, in particular, gave us as a chance to learn and benefit from the substantial canon of Russian culture, not only in philosophy but also modern art and especially literature.
One of the most valuable programs at the HCA was to study and practice artistic skills during ‘country trips’. Students went in small groups to remote parts of the central Vietnam region for two to three months every academic year. We actually lived and worked with the local people, becoming members of the community–a kind of artistic home stay. Those sketching trips gave me wonderful and enriching opportunities to explore the Truong Son Mountains, and Tay Nguyen, the Central
6 Plateau, and the way of life of the Djarai, Bahnar, and the Ede. The minority hill tribes of Tay Nguyen still practice ritual and burial ceremonies with Nha Mo, burial houses which are decorated with carving and sculpture.
In sum, my Vietnamese art education experience provided me with a chance to learn directly and absorb Hue traditional arts and culture, including the culture of the province, Thua Thien Hue, and the adjacent Truong Son Mountains. Even though the academic training that I received focused more on mechanical theory and craft skills than conceptual creativity, I was definitely well trained in drawing and Vietnamese traditional arts such as silk and lacquer painting. That skill set and knowledge of traditional arts eventually became very useful for me when I began to employ specific strategies later in my career.
In 1995 I was fortunate to receive a comprehensive and generous scholarship from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs along with an Arberg UNESCO scholarship to spend an entire year at the Rijsakademie of Amsterdam. It was my first visit to the West, and for the first time, at the age of 31, I was able to experience the art world outside of Vietnam, as the country had been isolated for many years after the war. This opportunity nourished great strides in my personal methodology. In particular, the Rijksakademie offered me a studio to work in and an encouraging artistic environment to develop ideas that I had not been able to experiment with while in Vietnam.
The school sponsored a study trip across Belgium and France which helped widen my vision considerably. Visiting the Pompidou Art Centre in Paris marked an important milestone in my artistic development. Other art museums in Europe, notably, the Louvre, the African Art Museum, and the Musee d’ Orsay intrigued me; I could ‘see and smell’ the artworks of modern masters. Artists like Mark Rothko, Ad Reinhard, and Yves Klein brought important ideas that directly impacted my own artwork at that time. Also, working together with the 35 other young emerging international artists in the Rijsakademie exchange program opened my art vista even wider. I was producing paintings on a much larger
7 scale with a visible influence from the tenets of minimalism. My paintings became simpler and my palette changed from vibrant and bright colors to more neutral values, often drifting toward monotone.
I was also fascinated with the forms which were certainly new to me then, of installation and conceptual artwork. Works of Anish Kapoor, Christian Boltanski, and Richard Long gave me new perspectives on how to develop artistic concepts materially, how to extend the concept and combine it with imagination and memories. Kapoor‘s works at the Foundation for Contemporary Art, Tilburg and the Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller, Otterlo, the Netherlands, showed me an idea of how artists can connect historical themes, with a wide range of materials.
I resumed my role as a lecturer at HCA after spending two years in the Netherlands and traveling around Europe. I was eager to present to the students of the HCA my own experiences during the trip. My goal was to share, as fully as possible, the new found knowledge and insight from my time in Europe. In 1996, and particularly in the central region of Vietnam, such information about the art world was greatly desired by the students.
HCA started to receive foreign visiting artists who I had contacted through international workshops and residencies. This enabled the staff to launch projects in collaboration with other arts schools. The collaboration between art schools through “sister school” programs between the United States of America (USA), Thailand, and other Vietnamese institutions, also brought important changes to the HCA as more staff members and students participated. The combination of these ongoing activities has benefited the students directly and the clear evidence of this can be seen in their artworks. I believe that it is paramount in today’s “shrinking planet” to support and encourage these cultural exchange programs between different countries.
1 See : 1968 Tet Offensive Remembered, Image: NATIONAL ARCHIVES, http://www.armchairgeneral.com/1968-tet-offensive-remembered.htm [accessed: December 6, 2008]
8 CHAPTER 2
A Spiritual Framework for an Artistic Practice
The world is in continuous flux and is impermanent.
Buddha.1
Buddhism- a psychology of mind
Buddhism, founded approximately 2,500 years ago, is the oldest and the third largest of the three world religions, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam. The ultimate goal for a Buddhist is to reach the peaceful state of nirvana and the means to reach this goal must be peaceful. To be a Buddhist, one is required to observe the Five Precepts.
The First Precept is that one needs to ensure that he/she does not take advantage of themselves, or others. The Second Precept is that by adopting neutrality towards all beings, one can embark on a spiritual journey of meditation to reach a tranquil mind. The Third Precept is that one should not indulge in sexual misconduct. This last Precept teaches one to respect one's own spouse as well as those of others, and encourages the practice of self-restraint, which is of utmost importance in spiritual training. The Fourth Precept is that he/she should not tell lies or resort to falsehood. This precept is an important factor in social life and dealings as it concerns respect for truth. The practice of the Fourth Precept, therefore, helps to preserve one's credibility, trustworthiness, and honour. The last of the Five Precepts requires a Buddhist to abstain from the use of intoxicants. On the personal level, abstention from intoxicants helps to maintain sobriety and a sense of responsibility.
Buddhists believe that the heart of Buddha’s teaching lies in Four Noble Truths:
“1. Life means suffering:
To live means to suffer, because the human nature is not perfect and neither is the world we live in. During our lifetime, we inevitably have to endure physical
9 suffering such as pain, sickness, injury, tiredness, old age, and eventually death; and we have to endure psychological suffering like sadness, fear, frustration, disappointment, and depression. Although there are different degrees of suffering and there are also positive experiences in life that we perceive as the opposite of suffering, such as ease, comfort and happiness, life in its totality is imperfect and incomplete, because our world is subject to impermanence. This means we are never able to keep permanently what we strive for, and just as happy moments pass by, we ourselves and our loved ones will pass away one day, too.
2. The origin of suffering is attachment.
The origin of suffering is attachment to transient things and the ignorance thereof. Transient things do not only include the physical objects that surround us, but also ideas, and -in a greater sense- all objects of our perception. Ignorance is the lack of understanding of how our mind is attached to impermanent things. The reasons for suffering are desire, passion, ardour, pursuit of wealth and prestige, striving for fame and popularity, or in short: craving and clinging. Because the objects of our attachment are transient, their loss is inevitable, thus suffering will necessarily follow. Objects of attachment also include the idea of a "self" which is a delusion, because there is no abiding self. What we call "self" is just an imagined entity, and we are merely a part of the ceaseless becoming of the universe.
3. The cessation of suffering is attainable.
The cessation of suffering can be attained through nirodha. Nirodha means the unmaking of sensual craving and conceptual attachment. The third noble truth expresses the idea that suffering can be ended by attaining dispassion. Nirodha extinguishes all forms of clinging and attachment. This means that suffering can be overcome through human activity, simply by removing the cause of suffering. Attaining and perfecting dispassion is a process of many levels that ultimately results in the state of Nirvana. Nirvana means freedom from all worries, troubles, complexes, fabrications and ideas. Nirvana is not comprehensible for those who have not attained it.
4. The path to the cessation of suffering.
10 There is a path to the end of suffering - a gradual path of self-improvement.. It is the middle way between the two extremes of excessive self-indulgence (hedonism) and excessive self-mortification (asceticism); and it leads to the end of the cycle of rebirth. The latter quality discerns it from other paths which are merely "wandering on the wheel of becoming", because these do not have a final object. The path to the end of suffering can extend over many lifetimes, throughout which every individual rebirth is subject to karmic conditioning. Craving, ignorance, delusions, and its effects will disappear gradually, as progress is made on the path.”2
Another key to understanding Buddhist philosophy is the concept of impermanence. What we consider as a ‘being’ or ‘individual’, according to Buddhist Philosophy, is only a combination of ever- changing physical and mental forces of energies, which may be divided into five groups of Aggregates (pancakkhandha). They are: The aggregate of Matter; The Aggregate of Sensations; The Aggregate of Perceptions; The Aggregate of Mental Formations, and The Aggregate of Consciousness. They are all impermanent states of subjectivity and they are all constantly changing.
The concept of impermanence is expressed clearly and poetically in the Diamon Sutra, one of the most important sutras:
“All phenomena in this world are
Like a dream, fantasy, bubbles, shadows;
They are also like dew, thunder and lightning;
One must understand life like that”3
The two ideas of suffering and impermanence are related; we suffer because nothing lasts. As Peter Harveys in An Introduction to Buddhism wrote:
“Buddhism does not deny the existence of happiness in the world- it provides ways of increasing it- but it does emphasize that all forms of happiness (bar that of Nirvana) do not last. Sooner or later, they slip through one’s fingers and leave the aftertaste of loss and longing”4
11 Non-violence is at the heart of Buddhist thinking and behavior. The first of the five precepts that I, and all Buddhists, follow as much as possible is: "Avoid killing, or harming any living thing." Buddhism is essentially a peaceful way of living. Nothing in Buddhist scripture gives any support to the use of violence as a way to resolve conflict.
“In times of war Give rise in yourself to the mind of compassion, Helping living beings Abandon the will to fight”.
Vimalakirti Sutra5
Vietnamese Buddhism
Buddhism came to Vietnam in the early part of the Christian era by way of China and India. Vietnam has a complex history of multiple kingdoms, including the Hindu kingdom of Champa, Chinese invasion and rule, and Vietnamese warlords. Vietnam was also a trading nation of rivers and ports visited by many nations. Vietnamese monks traveled to centres of Buddhism in India and China bringing back practices and texts from both cultures. Vietnamese Buddhism, heavily influenced by China, absorbed elements of Taoism, Confucianism, and ancestor worship along with the veneration of local deities. The emphasis in northern and central Vietnam came mainly from the Mahayana school of Buddhism, which was dominant in Vietnam, China, Korea, and Japan. Mahayana Buddhism, which developed several centuries after the death of the Buddha, places great emphasis on achieving social justice and assisting others to reach enlightenment, and its followers worship a multiplicity of deities.
Theravada Buddhism, which is largely followed in Sri Lanka, Thailand, Laos, Burma, and Cambodia, came into the southern part of present day Vietnam before the beginning of the Christian era. Earlier Khmer kingdoms occupied the Mekong Delta, and their descendants form one of the fifty-four minorities in Vietnam. Theravada Buddhism is more fundamentalist and conservative, places greater emphasis on monasticism and focuses on the Buddha alone. Despite the doctrinal
12 differences between Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism, both streams place the concept of compassion and non-violence at the centre of their ideology.
Figure 2.1
Thien Mu Pagoda, Hue city, Vietnam.
Buddhists also subscribe to a number of beliefs drawn from Hinduism. One of the most important is the concept of karma, wherein Buddhists trust that an individual's role in life is determined by actions in a previous existence. Most Vietnamese lay people adhere to ‘Pure Land Buddhism’ which means that they hope that their actions today can influence their fate tomorrow. Thus, they have faith in the importance of performing meritorious acts to ensure that their future will be easier. Vietnamese people, unlike many people in the West, have little sense of a personal god although they believe in a world inhabited by spirits that can wreak great havoc on those who do not appease them. Most monks and nuns, on the other hand, subscribe to Thien (better known as Zen), a discipline that teaches that liberation can be attained through meditation on a seemingly incongruous statement or question (most familiar in the West as a Ko-an).
Buddhism has been a key component of Vietnamese society since at least the Ly and Tran dynasties (11th-14th centuries). Buddhist monks engaged the state serving as key royal advisors. In turn many kings and mandarins practiced Buddhism, most notably King Trần Nhân Tông, who left the throne in 1293 to found the Trúc Lâm
13 school of Thien (Zen) on Yên Tu Mountain. The Trúc Lâm (“Bamboo Forest”) school unified the three main branches of Vietnamese Zen at the time. Trúc Lâm Buddhism was not ‘autonomous’ but adopted as a form of state religion. However, it maintained its core identity and values as a force for social progress and it left a lasting imprint on the Vietnamese soul.
“Throughout twenty centuries in the long history of Vietnam, Vietnamese Buddhism has been closely linked with the survival of the nation, whether in its rise and fall. Since the early days of its introduction, the mind of Vietnamese Buddhists has been so well imbued with the Buddha‘s Teachings about love, tolerance and sympathetic understanding that Vietnamese Buddhism has been able to co-exist in peace with other religions for over 2000 years. On the one hand, generations of Vietnamese monks and nuns and lay followers, unknown or well-known, have somehow participated in making it a unique Vietnamese religion coloured with Vietnamese ways and customs. On the other hand, Vietnamese Buddhism has had a great influence on Vietnamese literature, art, music, architecture and Buddhism, so to speak, has become a part of Vietnamese life”. 6
Buddhist practice in art making
Buddhism has tended to be absorbed by popular culture, less as a religion and more as a philosophy, or psychology of mind. Typically artists, and cultural producers from all disciplines, lead the way in adopting new lifestyles and their embracing of Buddhism as an “alternative” way to live is a strong example of this. Buddhism’s lack of heavy dogma is especially attractive because it places less emphasis on belief and more on practice.
Buddhism was accepted in predominantly Christian countries because of its democratic nature and the need for philosophical alternatives in anxious and tumultuous periods marked by unwanted urban strife, by wars in Vietnam, conflict in the Middle East, and the effects of globalization. The innate pacifism of Buddhism, its emphasis on anti-materialism in a period of booming economies and
14 mass consumption offered an alternative lifestyle and a form of resistance to the corporate state. In addition, Buddhism’s non- theistic psychology of mind turned out to be a good fix with the needs of the post- World War II, post-Vietnam war generations who were disenchanted with institutional religion.
The central appeal of Buddhism, to people whom had not grown up in countries where Buddhism was traditional, was its capacity to embody the value of compassion. The Buddhist view of the interdependence of being, with each other and within nature, was complimented by its ability to coexist with other religions. Because the primary conceptual tenet of Buddhism is the lack of a central essence or substance to the self, Buddhism provided a natural inspiration for or confirmation for artists in the process of discovering how exciting art could become, when freed for the restraints of materialism. The influence and resonance of Buddhism is important, not as a religious doctrine, but as a perspective that enables artists to achieve a state of synthesis through some elements of art practice.
The shadow of war
It would be easy to feel disadvantaged to be born in the land of “ten thousand days of war” where you have little choice but to, face huge difficulties and live with poverty. Yet on the other hand, it was fortunate for me to be born and raised during that uncertain time, and in a place, Hue, during a chapter of history that gave me the chance to witness tragedy and chaos in Vietnam. My experience of bitter civil war and deadly foreign invasion shaped my world view from an early age. I remain fascinated by how family members, Vietnamese people and the entire country went from war through to peace time. The legacy of ideological and military conflicts is still present in every single Vietnamese family. Our culture and religion was constantly challenged and influenced by other beliefs and cultures, particularly the Chinese, French and American.
15 Some of the questions that I raise in my artworks are: How have different religious and cultural influences been absorbed, or hybridized in practice in different regions of Vietnam? Why has there been a renewal of Buddhist philosophy and practice since Doi Moi7? How has the ‘openness’ of Doi Moi been important in reviving all forms of spiritual and religious practice? Does ‘renovated’ Buddhism offer enough support for a renewal of hope and compassion for my people? Most importantly, how does it help us to deal with the conflict and rage inside us, which continues even though the war, ‘officially’ ended more than 40 years ago? Memories and reflections about those early experiences of war and suffering are deeply embedded in my consciousness. They become a kind of ‘mental-material, an ‘emotional- heritage’ for my art making. Those early experiences, the stories associated with them and the silent questions raised in the mind of a child, as well as the countless interesting stories of others provide the theoretical structure for my art practice. As an artist, my life’s work is to try to decode my memories, to dissect my experiences, to understand pain and tragedy by transforming it into artistic thoughts and ideas.
The American War
During two month period in 1986, a group of art students including myself, walked from Khe Sanh through the Demilitarised Military Zone (DMZ)8 along the 17th parallel that separated North and South Vietnam between the 1954 agreement and the end of the war in 1975. We crossed the Ho Chi Minh Trail, then walked along the Sepone River (the natural border between Laos and Vietnam). We stayed with a family from the Van Kieu and Pako tribes people during this trip, which made a deep impression on me. It was the first time I saw some of the infamous battles sites of the war, Con Tien, Doc Mieu, Khe Sanh and Hamburger Hill, as well as the largest war cemetery in Vietnam, in the Truong Son Mountains, where some of the heaviest fighting of the war took place with high casualties. There are more than 10,6009 soldiers buried in Truong Son, many in unmarked graves.
People tend not to talk about the war, even though we all share similar and closely related feelings of grief. The loss that we feel is enormous. Living with the Minority
16 Tribes in the area helped me understand more how much the war still affected their lives even though 10 years had passed. Children were still being wounded everyday by landmines. We lived close to the former battle sites so people made their own hunting or cooking tools from the battle scrap they found in the area. For instance, rubber from old military jeep tyres was used in making sandals, helmets became cooking pots, aluminum and iron from burnt out tanks was used to make knives and other farming tools, while shell casings became flower pots. Seeing how resourceful these traumatized people were made the experience of surviving war more real, adding to my understanding of personal grief and loss. During this trip I collected nine combat helmets and took them back to Hue without any idea what I was going to do with them. Little did I know then that the experiences and memories from that trip, and specifically the helmets that I found along the road, would be starting point for a longer journey toward making artwork that related to the experience of war and peace. Buddhist philosophy and folk beliefs served as a backbone for the people of Vietnam and promoted the process of healing throughout the community.
The following is from Thich Nhat Hanh10’s book, Love in Action, Writings on social changes:
“Personal healing will be the whole healing of the nation, if the nation comes to understand the true nature of the war, loving kindness will begin to surface, and healing will begin. As long as there is no communication, there is no insight or compassion, and you continue to suffer….
…We may think of peace as the absence of war that if the great powers would reduce their weapon arsenals, we could have peace. But if we look deeply into the weapons, we will see our own minds, our own prejudices, fears, and ignorance. Even if we transport all the bombs to the Moon, the roots of war and the roots of bombs are still here-in our hearts and minds-and, sooner or later, we will make new bombs. To work for peace is to uproot war from ourselves and from the hearts of men and women”11
17 These insights of Thich Nhat Hanh helped me to deal with my own memories in a peaceful and quiet manner, with a calmness and tranquility of mind. He presents a unified way of looking at this tragic situation, in which he takes no sides or nor does he criticise any one’s viewpoint.
I now realise more fully how the memories and resentments that stayed inside me have shaped and formed my own character, my personal aesthetic. I have come to learn how memory built my view of the past, memories, making a ‘bridge to reality’, stirring motivation for me to follow my career as an artist, informing me what to express through my art work. That may be one reason why I tend to stay outside the main stream Vietnamese art world and market which is located in Saigon and Hanoi. I have a studio and teach at the Hue College of Arts, in the city where I grew up and experienced the war. I always felt apart from the group of higher profile so-called successful artists. I felt guided by something deep within my consciousness; I needed to use my artwork as a means to “pour out” sorrow, grief, and a complex feeling of loss. By transforming all that dark negativity into “something else”, brings me a sense of hope and peace, encouraging me to walk out of the shadow of the past.
The representation of grief, memory and loss that I make does not fit neatly into the rubric of artwork acceptable to the censors, or reflect the ‘nationalist style’ demanded of mainstream Vietnamese artwork, particularly in the tourist art market. Overseas study and exhibitions are so important to me. I spent much of the last 14 years working and exhibiting anywhere but my homeland. It has turned me into a strange kind of ‘cultural refugee’ within my own country. I think that a similar transformation occurred to the other Vietnamese artists Vu Dan Tan , TruongTan, Nguyen Bao Toan and Tran Trong Vu. Rather than feed the current market demand for pretty digestible imagery and objects we all make “something else”. We lay the artwork peacefully on the altar of our souls, then we walk away.
By making art, I feel that I become more capable of escaping the deeply embedded memories that imprison me. I can then try to transform my work into a new form
18 full of life and energy - visual art. For me, the creative process is a process of self transformation – It provides catharsis, leading to a path of openness and forgiving. These are the steps that build the bridge of reconciliation within oneself first and then, hopefully, on a much larger scale.
Contemporary Art, Buddhism and War
The influence of Buddhism on mainstream Western Art began in the late 19th century and has now extended well beyond a traditional religious and cultural context. Buddhism offers different ways to look at reality, often more objectively, with a perspective that can blur the boundaries between art and life, it serves as a catalyst for forming an ‘awakened’ consciousness and provides fresh insights into the concepts of self, space and time.
The following insight is from Walpola Rahula's book, What the Buddha taught, and can be cited as a perfect description of the Buddhist view of life:
“Buddhism is neither pessimistic nor optimistic. If anything at all, it is realistic, for it takes a realistic view of life and of the world. It looks at things objectively (yathabhutam). It does not falsely lull you into living in a fool’s paradise, nor does it frighten and agonized you with all kind of imaginary fears and sins. It tells you exactly and objectively what you are and what the world around you is, and show you the way to perfect freedom, peace, tranquility and happiness.” 12
The Buddha's insight that suffering resides, not in events or objects, but in our mind can be an appropriate answer to one of the important question in contemporary art - how does an artist ‘make’ conceptual art? Is it true that art resides not in the mind of the artist or in the art object, but in the mind of the viewer? By analyzing the works of the following contemporary artists, all of whom have employed a Buddhist perspective in making artwork, I can discuss the philosophy and practice behind
19 their artwork. I also will explore how these artists reflect upon and physically transform their memories and personal experiences through their creative practice.
Bill Viola- the “process of self –transformation”
Video Artist Bill Viola's work is often cited as spiritual, or influenced by Buddhist thought. Viola's work directly relates to Buddhist awareness practice, his work is a profound expression of the process of art-making as a meditative practice. In an interview by Mary Ann Jacob; co-author of the book: Buddha mind in Contemporary Art, Bill Viola talked about how his works became engaged with the issue of ‘time’ or how we experience this thing called time. The following is how the artist describes his concept behind the work Zendo:
“In the Zendo- fifty minutes of quiet stillness in a room of solitary individual- time opens up in an unbelievable way. A little bird chirping outside becomes an event of great magnitude. When time and space open up, all of a sudden there’s a lot room for you. In quiet moments you get an idea, or a thought, or a revelation, that you wouldn’t have it if you were in a hurry to get somewhere. Our lives require quiet innocent moments like these, so we absolutely have to make spaces- particularly in our world of compressed time- or else our spirits will get choked off. There’s a vast industry surrounding us in permeating our most private spaces that wants it to flow faster and faster away from us, where it can become a commodity to be bought and sold. We have to reclaim time by itself, wrenching it from “time is money”, maximum-efficiency mentality, and make room for it to flow the other way… towards us. We must take time back into ourselves, to let our consciousness breathe and our cluttered minds be still and silent. This is what art can do.”13
Zendo offers a certain place where visitors can have the feeling of a unique space, a space that seems wide and open. This space encourages creativity and allows uncertain moments of unfettered chaos. This is a space that allows viewers to adopt an expansive sense of patience for the experience itself to unfold on its own terms,
20 in its own time. It lets a personal intimate ‘breathing space’ develop for the viewers within the context of what the artist called the ‘quiet innocent moments’. Buddhists describe a certain experience of moments in time as ‘the mind of do not know’, which encourages a deeper processing of understanding art, an opening of awareness and the greater potential for deeper realizations when witnessing visual art.
In the same context, Thich Nhat Hanh refers to the process as ‘conscious breathing’, a bridge between body and mind. ‘Conscious breathing’ practice creates ‘blankness’ moments in mind, and leads to the full awareness of present moments, or as he states: “Our appointment with life is in the present moment”.14
Another of Bill Viola’s work that provides fresh insights into the concepts of self, space and time: Catherine’s room, 2001 based on a fourteenth century predella by Andrea di Bartolo, presents scenes from the life of St Catherine display in five LCD screens.
Figure 2.2 Bill Viola, Catherine’s room, Five LCD screens. 2001
21 Bill Viola seeks to make art that enables a transformative experience to occur within the viewer, which as the Buddha said, can lead to a process of self- transformation, a path beyond suffering:
“All events in the physical world, including works of art, can provide openings that lead to the release of suffering. This has more to do with the viewer than the object. Artworks do have a special place as visualizations of invisible forces and realities that people may not otherwise recognize. This is the special power of art and the responsibility of those with artistic talent: to bring images into the world that can benefit all sentient beings”15.
Lee Mingwei- and the “Letter writing project”
The work of Taiwanese- American artist Lee Mingwei, entitled "The letter writing project" (1999) reflects his deep Buddhist philosophical influences. Born and raised in Taiwan until 13, Lee Mingwei spent a period of his life in a Buddhist monastery in Taiwan where he received direct teaching in Cha'an Buddhism. I will discuss how his "Letter writing" project follows a similar path and process of realisation as my artwork, Field of Dreams- Origami Project. Lee seeks to make work that is a sincere and honest reflection of his interior world, often with a Buddhist theme. He believes that Buddhism, especially its Ch'an form, is a more complete way of living than just a separate religion. As an artist he chose to place himself in the middle of the debate over the distinctions made between religion and secularism, between art and life. Lee describes his artwork as follows:
“The project came form my own experience when my grandmother died. She was a great inspiration in my life, and when she died I had all these things I wanted to tell her, but it was too late. So I started to write her a letter. This emptying out had a healing effect; it was liberating. I wanted others to experience this too, by sharing their interior lives and inviting readers to explore their own…a form of exchange rooted in my Buddhist training.
22 …So what I wanted to do is say that everything is here and it is time for you to write. We had many letters to deceased. I have about 2,000 of them in my studio. I am creating a ceremony to burn them as they float down a river”16
Lee Mingwei designed a very simple project. He created three three-sided booths, constructed of wood and translucent glass, each of which contains a desk and writing materials. One booth is designed for standing, another for sitting, and the third for kneeling, traditional positions in which one may meditate. He asked people to go in and write any kind of letter, but particularly a letter of gratitude or forgiveness with insight. After finishing the letter they could either seal it and put it on the inside, or not seal it so that other participants could read it and share the experience with each other.
Figure 2.3 Lee Mingwei, The Letter Writing Project, Mixed media interactive installation.
The main concept of this project was based on the Buddhist notion of compassion and forgiveness. The ‘act’ of writing letters is, in fact, taking place within a certain form of meditation. When people sit down and write such a letter with a great
23 feeling of compassion and forgiving, they are actually performing meditation. As the artist explained:
“When I was in the monastery, my teacher taught me that there are three different kinds of postures for meditation: standing for gratitude, sitting for insight, and kneeling for forgiveness. In this project, the three components that create karma- body, thought, and speech- are all activated as you write. But I don’t want it to be too dogmatic; I don’t tell people what to do. People knew based on the position of the table in the room where they write”..17
The art project becomes a process of mental and psychological releasing, where personal resentments were being transformed through ‘the act’ of writing and the ‘will’ to share. One could view this as an attempt to ‘empty out’ or ‘let go’, as in the Zen Buddhism tradition, which enables individuals to develop the capacity for understanding in a wider context. I believe the concept behind Lee Mingwei's Writing Letter Project is a manifestation of the Buddhist insight of awareness and compassion. It reflects the high value he places on deep and meaningful interpersonal exchange, which fosters personal growth and leads to the beginning of the healing process.
The Installations of Montien Boonma
Montien Boonma’ s works have had a deep and lasting influence on my art making practice. There are similarities in our cultural and ethnic background, and lifelong Buddhist practices, as well as a shared art methodology. I first met him in a workshop that we took part in together in Dalat, Vietnam in 1996. Later that year I met him again in Bangkok and he was the one who introduced me to Vasan Sitthiket, Perrapong Dungkaep, and many other contemporary artists in Thailand. We come from the same generation and have similar cultural and economic class backgrounds. We were educated and trained as painters in South East Asia before venturing out of our respective countries. One can readily see the shared Buddhist perspective in our artworks, which often use metaphors for hope, faith and healing.
24
Figure 2.4
Montien Boonma, Temple of the mind, 1995. (wood, brass bells, medicinal herbs, 320 x 270 cm) Collection of the National Gallery of Australia.
There are also discernable differences between my work and the Thai artist. Boonma's works are quite solid, concrete and architectural, while my works incorporate an abundance of light and shadow, with perhaps more emphasis on an active ongoing process. There certainly is an obvious parallel in the manner in which we use a Buddhist perspective in our art practice. Our installations often demand the viewer's active engagement, inviting them physically to enter an artwork, for example, Boonma's Temple of the Mind, 1995 ( Figure 2.4). House of Hope 1996–1997 and my installation, Vietnam- the Fossilized War 1998 and the Field of Hope-origami project, 2003.
Our sculpture and installations often offer space for reflection and contemplation. (for example, Boonma's Nature's Breath: Arokhayasala, 1995; Lotus Sound, 1992 and my work, Mediation Space, 1994; and Buddha's smile, 2007, and others.) Boonma's installations incorporate organic substances such as herbs and spices, wax, gold leaf, as well as steel and other industrial materials. His practice directly inspired me to use smoke, rice, clay and ceramic in my earlier works, which also relates to my use of ash and charcoal powder in later work such as Hands, and Buddha's Smile.
25
Figure 2.5 Montien Boonma, Lotus sound, 1992, terracotta lotus cover with gold 300 x 350 x 300cm, Collection Photograph courtesy of Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, Australia.
Nakahashi Katsushige - Reconstructing Memories18.
Katsushige Nakahashi is one of Japan's high profile contemporary artists. The centre of his Zero Project is the WWII fighter plane used by the Japanese for the attack on Pearl Harbour on December 7, 1941, that subsequently crash-landed on Niihau.
Katsushige Nakahashi’s Zero Projects refer in part to his father’s experiences. His father worked in a Zero maintenance crew at the Omura Naval base in Nagasaki, during the Second World War. Nakahashi constructs his Zeros from approximately 25,000 individual photographs by carefully photographing a 1:32 scale toy model. When the photographs are developed he creates a full-scale replica of the Japanese World War II vintage fighter plane.
26 After each exhibition, the artist ceremoniously carries his work to an open space and burns it.
Nakahashi began the project in 2000 and plans to continue making and then destroying his sculptures until the end of 2009. As of 2003, five such aircraft had been created, not only in Nishinomiya, Japan, but also in Brisbane and Darwin, Australia (2000), Seattle, USA (2001) and Cowra, Australia (2002).
In this project, the artist, Nakahashi reconstructs historical and/or personal memories to which he has no direct relationship. He is working indirectly by reconstituting the experiences of his father. Nakahashi work re-vitalizes the historical process and illustrates how history manifests itself, not just in grand historical narratives, but in everyday experiences that inform our memories. By constructing his sculptures at sites chosen for their significant relation to war, Nakahashi engages the local community, by enlisting their help in the painstaking process of reconstruction. Through the process of assembling the photographs, the Zero provokes memories that participants have almost forgotten or kept deep inside.
There is a similarity between the French artist Christian Boltanski, who based his work, the Holocaust, 1994 on what he called “little memories” and Nakahashi’s Zero Project. The process by which the artist incorporates historical events into a specific artistic idea is what interests me about Boltanski’s and Nakahashi’s artwork. Nakahashi shows a way that history can be made more tangible. The work becomes a process of sharing stories and memories between people. As the artist emphasised the process of creating his full-scale plane. The Zeros Project is far more important than the finished product.
Diana Yeh, wrote about Nakahashi’s work in “The art of zero”:
“Yet despite this lengthy and obsessive process, the aircraft are incinerated on completion, placing the emphasis on the process of their construction–and indeed destruction–rather than a finished product. For, highlighting the organic nature of the piece, the artist says, ‘The work is completed only at the point when it is reduced to ashes, but when the ashes are taken up by the wind, and the scorched grass begins to re-grow, these processes are also all part of the art work … The
27 work called Zero is this cyclical process of metempsychosis, starting from zero and ending in zero”.19
Figure 2.6 Katsushige Nakahashi, Walking Zero project, Seattle, 2001.
Nakahashi’s Zero Project also refers to complex associations with the act of burning that conveys the difficulties of representing war. The act of burning- according to the artist, ‘ involves the custom in Japan of lighting fires to send off the spirits of the dead- just as firing is necessary in the creation of ceramics- flames are necessary for the completion of this artwork as well’.
I found Nakahashi's work an excellent example of an artwork which relates to war themes, which does not constitute an ‘anti-war’ statement, nor an apology for war. Through the process of sharing their experiences and by the act of burning, people will reach a deeper understanding of their memories and a spiritual renewal. When encountering his Zero we are compelled to reconcile our own emotions, which for many of us are conflicted.
28
Figure 2.7 Katsushige Nakahashi, Zero in Hawaii, Thursday, December 14, 2006. The Burning of ZERO #BII-120
By transporting his work to a site for burning, Nakahashi's Zero sculptures parallel the funeral rituals performed in Japan. Which raises the question: What has died? Is it military prowess, Japanese traditional values, or cultural memory?
The work was made with no intention of expressing the realities of war, instead he wanted to remain true to the ambivalent sense of play he experienced as a child.
“As Nakahashi has said on numerous occasions he believes that his role as an artist is not to pass judgment, but to ask questions. Some of the power of Nakahashi’s work lies not so much in the questions that he himself asks, but rather in the questions that we are compelled to ask when seeing or interacting with his work. It is in our own inquiry that the full force of his work is realized”20
I can identify two main points in Nakahashi Katsushige’s Zero Project that are common to my methodology and art practice. First, I make artwork that incorporates war themes to deal with my personal memories. The design of my projects create a cathartic and participatory act of storytelling that weaves together
29 personal memories. Also, participants play an important role in my projects such as my Origami projects: Paper boats, Long Hai Vietnam 2000; Field of Hope, Japan 2003 and Field of Dreams, Blue Mountain NSW, 2006.
Secondly, I place an emphasis on the process, the process of construction and destruction extends the multilayered nature of the work. In my recent sculptural projects Hands and Buddha’s Smile, which emphasise the act of making, the process becomes more important than the finished artwork. Process and practices are deeply rooted in the Buddhist notion of impermanence; (which I discuss in Chapter 3).
1 Walpola Rahula, What the Buddha taught, Grove Press New York, 1959. Page 26
2 Thomas Knierim, (ed), The Four Noble Truths, Available online at: http://www.thebigview.com/buddhism/fourtruths.html [accessed Dec 6, 2008]
3 Chang Chen-chi, The Practice of Zen, New York, Harper and Brothers, 1959. P.128.
4 Peter Harveys, An Introduction to Buddhism: Teachings, History, and Practices, Cambridge University Press, 1990. Page 48
5 Sulak Sivaraksa, Choices Living Consciously, Buddhism and Nonviolence, in Seeds of Peace: A Buddhist Vision for Renewing Society. Parallax Press, Berkeley, California, 1992 Available online at: www.Parallax.org. [accessed July 15, 2007]
6 Most.Ven. Dr. Thich Minh Chau, A brief history of Vietnamese Buddhism, http://www.buddhismtoday.com/english/vietnam/country/003-buddhism%20in%20VN.htm [accessed December 5, 2008]
7 Doi moi (the usual English spelling of Vietnamese Đổi mới = "renovation") is the name given to the economic reforms initiated by in Vietnam in 1986.
8 DMZ, which means demilitarized zone, is a military term that refers to a combat-free area between two enemies. The DMZ in Vietnam lay at the 17th parallel and was created by an agreement known as the Geneva Accords. In reality, the Vietnamese DMZ extended about a mile on either side of the Ben Hai River and ran west to east from the Laotian border to the South China Sea. http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1885.html [accessed October 7, 2008]
9 Thinh Phat, Back to Truong son, http://vietnam.vnanet.vn/Internet/en-US/49/130/21/2359/7/2004/Default.aspx, [accessed: December 21, 2008].
10 Thich Nhat Hanh , born 1926 in central Vietnam, is an expatriate Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk, teacher, author, poet and peace activist. During the war in Vietnam, he worked tirelessly for reconciliation between North and South Vietnam, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nhat_Hanh#Biography [accessed: October 17, 2008]
11 Thich Nhat Hanh, Love in Action, Writings on social changes, Parallax Press Berkeley, California, Page 75
12 Walpola Rahula, What the Buddha taught, Grove Press. New York, Page 17.
30
13 Jacquelynn Baas and Mary Jane Jacob (ed) ‘Bill Viola’ 249-257 in Jacquelynn Baas and Mary Jane Jacob,(ed), Buddha mind in Contemporary Art. University of California Press Berkeley Los Angeles London. Page 253
14 Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace is every step-The path of mindfulness in everyday life. Bantam Books. Page 10
15 Jacquelynn Baas and Mary Jane Jacob (ed) Buddha mind in Contemporary Art. University of California Press Berkeley Los Angeles London. Page 255
16 Ibid, Page 233
17 Ibid, Page 232
18 Nakihashi’s Zero Project is part of the exhibition: Reconstructing Memories, at the University of Hawaii, Art Gallery November 5 - December 13, 2006. http://online.sfsu.edu/~amkerner/memory/index.html [accessed: November 19, 2008]
19 Diana Yeh, Katsushige Nakahashi, The art of zero, The international artist database, culturebase.net / http://www.culturebase.net/artist.php?895 [accessed: November 18, 2008]
20 http://online.sfsu.edu/~amkerner/memory/nakahashi.htm/ [accessed: November 18, 2008]
31 Chapter 3
An Evolving Creative Process
In this chapter I discuss my previous works which relate to the themes of Buddhism and war. These works include sculpture, installation and site specific artwork made over the past decade plus my most recent artwork produced during the time of my Master of Fine Arts research. These works relate to memory and reflection, influenced by a Buddhist perspective. I explore the notion of the process of self transformation and how this has affected my ideology and methodology in art practice.
Shadow (1992)
In 1992, two years after graduating and holding several different jobs, I was invited to return to the Hue Art College to teach in the painting department. Soon after starting that position I made my first ‘installation’, almost accidentally, in my backyard using those helmets which I found from the field trip to the battlegrounds of the Vietnam War.
At that time, I didn’t know any other art forms except painting and sculpture. I just wanted to make something to express my memories and experiences from the trip and the hollow and empty helmets stimulated my imagination. The hollow space of the helmet reminds me of the individual who had worn it, who was possibly lost somewhere in the jungle. By watching the objects and its shadows created by sunlight, I was amazed to realize that the ‘presence’ of the hollow space filled the helmets, and the lost soldier was visualized by his own shadow. As the new and strange artwork stayed out doors in my backyard for many days, I could witness firsthand the continually changing light and shadow. This was a significant event in my life at that time, as it became my first 3-dimensional artwork. I wanted to create a feeling of immediacy and authenticity by incorporating various found objects (that is helmets, wires etc) found in the DMZ area in my artwork. I first suspended them on an exposed wall of my backyard where the sunlight cast interesting shadows. I wanted to emphasize a sense of absence, a kind of hollowness that, represented
32 American soldiers who were lost during the war. By utilizing sunlight in the installation, I witnessed continuous change taking place.
Figure 3.1 Le thua Tien, Shadow, helmets, wire, photograph size variable, 1992.
The objects and their shadows actively interact were constantly changing and then fading as the sun set. I felt as if the memories from the past had returned to the present moment, along with the energy from the sunlight, and lost souls were healed and transformed. By using the American solders’ helmets, instead of the Vietnamese, I feel that this is a physical expression of my concept of non-duality, influenced by Buddhism.
Meditation Space (1995) was an early example of my exploration of light and smoke as physical art materials. This work aimed to create a space for practicing concentration and reflection by projecting a slide (with an image of a spiral) from a 4 meters high ceiling onto floor, the floor was covered by a black mat, and a round bamboo tray containing rice was placed at the center of the room. Black pillows
33 were casually arranged on the floor to encourage visitors to sit and relax. As the viewers entered the room, they were offered incense sticks. As the smoke from the burning incense sticks caught the light, they formed the shape of a pyramid or tower in the space. Scent from the incense and the weaving trails of the smoke interacted with the shifting light, creating a metaphoric experience about the floating of time.
Figure 3.2 Le thua Tien, Mediation space, slide projector, slide film, rice, bamboo, incense sticks, pillows. Amsterdam, 1996
34 Path (1998) is a work in progress, started in 1998 with plaster maquettes 60 x 60 x 70cm. This work was influenced by Zen Buddhist philosophy, which emphasis on individual practice and self improvement rather than iconography. The idea is to offer a gateway, a pathway or just simply an open space, where the visitor can walk through the sculpture. The facades are polished so that the viewer can see themselves reflected while walking through. The work is supposed to be made of cut marble, about 7m to 11m high.
Figure 3.3 Le thua Tien, Path, plaster marques 60 x 60 x 65cm, 1998.
The ninth-century Zen Master, Lin Chi1, gave this advice to one of his monks:
“If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him!” a warning to rely only upon the self and not to trust external forces as ‘authority figures’ who wish to dictate one’s life
35 or even simply to imply a certain way that one must be. Lin Chi would warn not even to rely upon his words, such as I just cited, but to reflect upon one’s own self as one’s guide. Modern Buddhists place emphasis more on rituals than practice. Therefore the Buddha’s statue becomes more of an iconographic image. Somehow it blocks the way for one to look inside, to return to the Buddha hood which remains in every individual. It creates illusion about some sort of external power.
“Make an island of yourself, make yourself your refuge; there is no other refuge. Make truth your island, make truth your refuge; there is no other refuge”. Digha Nikaya2
The Buddha taught, encouraged, and stimulated each person to develop themselves and to work out their own emancipation, for humans have the power to liberate themselves from all bondage through their personal effort and intelligence. The Buddha said: ‘You should do your work, the Tathagata3 only teach the way!” he discovered and showed the Path to Liberation, Nivrana, but we must tread the Path ourselves.
Vietnam –The Fossilized War (1997- 1999) is an installation I made during the period I was Artist in Residence at the Indochina Arts Partnership (IAP) in Boston, MA, in 1997. The IAP initiatives have been supported by the William Joiner Foundation, since 1988.4 The IAP aims to heal the painful wounds of the people of Vietnam and the United States of America, through art projects that foster reconciliation. The installation was exhibited in Lillian Immig Gallery of Emmanuel College, Boston Massachusetts USA in 1997; the University of North Texas Gallery in Texas, TX, in 1998 and in the Gap Vietnam exhibition in 1998; and in The House of World Cultures in Berlin, Germany in 1999.
36
Figure 3.4 Le Thua Tien, Vietnam- The fossilized War, plaster figures, chairs, 6 minutes video clips, size variable,1997- 1999.
The installation combines seven life size plaster figures which sit on white chairs facing a screen on which appears six minutes of video clips from the war. The figures are mothers, soldiers and children, they represent the fossilized human memories of the war. The six minute video loop shows selected scenes from war footage, mixed and edited to depict graphically and in slow motion some of the war’s carnage. The shadow cast by the plaster figures interacted with the motion pictures on screen. The concept of this installation is that the war is in the past, that we shouldn’t deny it, but that we need to move on. By providing empty chairs for visitors to sit among the figures of the installation, I aimed to offer a place for people to sit together, sharing the same space, where everyone could lose themselves in moments of reflection.
The emphasis in this installation was the participation and interaction between viewers and the work. The slow motion, re-mixed sound track blurred the boundary between memories and reality. By bringing memories back to the present moment, the viewer could recast these memories in the light of present
37 day realities. Unlike most Vietnamese artists, who shun the subject of war, I chose to use this installation to confront not only the American War (as it is known in Vietnam), but all wars. The only hope for humanity and the planet is in remembering the nihilism of war.
There has been a dearth of pieces by Vietnamese contemporary artists that deal with the American war. Theories abound which attempt to explain the reluctance of modern artists to tackle the conflict. More than 30 years since the American War, and the Third Indo-China War between Vietnam, Cambodia and China, and the subsequent occupation of Cambodia, ended in 1989, an entire generation has grown up in Vietnam with no direct experience of conflict.5 Yet, most of today’s established professional Vietnamese artists were alive in the 1960s and 1970s and they still have memories from the period before 1989. Indeed some artists enlisted or were conscripted into the multiple military forces in the region at that time, the Army of Republic of Vietnam (ARVN), the army of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) and the Viet Cong. Another explanation could be that for the first time in decades there is peace in the country, and artists simply reflect the condition that they want to concentrate on positive and romantic images.
My rationale is that there is a kind of catharsis achieved in the process of working with memories of grief and pain. As a result I made: Vietnam - The Fossilized War and crucial to its success was the context in which it was first presented, it was exhibited in America. The citizens of a former enemy were given the chance to share in a Vietnamese man’s intimate, yet accessible, expression of mourning and sadness. Bradford Edward commented that: ‘the fact that Tien was able to realize this project is an illustration of how effective residency programme can be. Ironically, while many Americans still swallow in self-indulgent pity and regret about the war, the majority of Vietnamese have moved on.’ Bradford then quoted from a statement I distributed to the audience of the installation:
“If you wander among the highways and byways of Vietnam nowadays, you will be struck by the boundless energy unleashed by the people everywhere. And you must realize that the Vietnamese people are capable of overcoming their suffering, thanks to a deep sense of altruism and a capacity to dream. I
38 think that these are outstanding inherent traits of my people. Tragic yes, but, at the same time, moving. Let us be strong enough to lay to rest the fossilized pains of war - place them in the highest altar. Let us bow our heads in their honor…and then get on with the future ahead of us”6.
Bradford Edwards went on to say that: ‘Tien’s installation is a succinct and poignant example of an artist simultaneously dwelling in the past and the present. Tien, by combining his acknowledgement of a tragic time in history with his belief in the power of forgiveness, transforms his personal pain into a larger universal desire for peace.
Figure 3.5 Le thua Tien, Vietnam- The fossilized War, plaster figures, chairs, 6 minutes video clips, size variable,1997- 1999.
39 Site Specific Installations
I value highly the artworks and subsequent exhibitions in which I collaborated with international artists over the last 15 years. I consider collaborative and cooperative activity a major component of my artistic career. Obviously the artists whom I worked with shared a common aesthetic or theme so that we could easily work together. Central to these projects was also the foreign artists’ degree of personal involvement with Vietnamese culture, both historical and contemporary. These combined factors and aspects of each artist’s sensibilities created opportunities for us to produce works together and share in the process of mounting a group or two person exhibitions.
Figure 3.6 Pillars of Healing Bradford Edwards and Le Thua Tien, paper casting, 200 x 200 x 380cm, 1997.
40 Pillars of Healing (1997) was a work that I made in collaboration with an American artist Bradford Edwards. It was included in the exhibition “ 1+1” at Ho Chi Minh City Fine Arts Museum in 1997 . Bradford Edwards is a son of an American Marine Corps pilot who served two tours of duty during the American War. This sculpture consisted of three columns of cast paper sculptures of two styles of helmets, (United States Army and North Vietnamese Army), and 1 Vietnamese peasant hat (a typical cone- shaped hat of woven straw). Oversized and gilded with gold leaf, the objects were stacked upon one another, rising from floor to ceiling. At first glance, because they were stacked so tightly, the columnar form was not immediately recognizable. Initially, they appeared to be made of a solid weight, but actually the newspaper construction caused them to sway with the lightest breeze.
It was a stimulating mix, to have our artwork creating a meta-conversation between differing imagery and materials, but it was also exciting to have a shared artwork on display as well. We decided to expand an idea of mine using helmets and/or hats as symbolic personal emblems of an individual’s active involvement in Vietnamese history. What could be more intimate and familiar than a helmet or hat, protecting a person’s head? It is handled constantly and worn most of the time – headwear eventually becomes one with the body after awhile – a physical extension of the flesh and bone.
In order to remove the direct and tragic association of the three shapes we gilded the paper with gold foil mimicking a common pagoda motif. Having a mix of Vietnamese and American symbols authentically reflected the authors, who were tied inextricably to the tragedy of this infamous war. We wanted to elevate and transcend the negative ‘juju’ so closely connected to these symbols of the war. In effect, we wanted the shapes to have a new life of their own, to float above the standard historical record, to be liberated.
Pillars of Healing was our collective attempt at exorcising the negativity associated with the destruction of the Citadel during the infamous Tet Offensive in 1968. By making North Vietnamese and US combat helmets, as well as the conical hats,
41 beautiful and luminous, we were attempting to free the ghosts of the past and to make the Citadel whole again.
“ In 1997, over 20 years after Vietnam and America ended their conflict, we can casually walk into an exhibition like “ 1+1”. This collaborative effort shows that we are only as different as we want to be”7
Field of Dreams (2003) was a continuation of my first Community art project Paper boats, (2000), where I integrated paper origami objects into the landscape. The project was designed and realized during my participation in an International Workshop (“Liquid”, 2000) which took place in Long Hai, Vietnam, a small fishing village north of Saigon.
During the 80’s many fishing boats put to sea to flee Vietnam secretly, I personally witnessed some of those clandestine voyages when, as an art student, I spent 3 months in a small fishing village as part of an extended field trip. The idea for the project came when I had a chance to return to the region. Key to this project was involving the local community in honoring the half million Vietnamese people who were lost at sea during those years. The project involved many artists from workshops and regular local people, who helped fold the boats and install the work.
Traditionally, in Vietnam, paper has been used as a ritual material, it can be a symbolic offering to deities and deceased ancestors. Paper can be pasted, folded, cut and painted to resemble almost any worldly object. Paper, especially when burnt in a ritualistic fashion, can carry daily messages to the spirit world, via the ascending ash.
I have chosen folded paper boats as symbol of the small fishing boats which people used in these desperate attempts to escape. The origami technique of employing basic A4 white printing paper was used because of its stark simplicity and wide availability. Future projects utilize this methodology by making these origami installations in many different places with relevant symbols and themes that are intrinsic to a particular environment.
42
Figure 3.7 Le thua Tien, Paper boats, 6 x 8 x 20cm each, 7,000 items. Vung Tau, Long Hai, Vietnam, 2000.
Bucking tradition, instead of burning the paper boats, I placed them delicately in a seashore context. Seven thousand boats were put, at one time, out in the water between rocks along the seashore early in the morning. Local people at the beach for the day, watched the waves wash the boats ashore, on the rising tide. By placing the white fragile paper boats on the craggy rocks of the seashore, I wanted to create a visual metaphor contrasting the nature of man (how limited and fragile human life is) with the essence of nature (the vastness of space and time). This work makes a direct connection between my own singular memories and the larger consciousness of the community. The installation also bridges different generations and social groups, especially for the “Overseas Vietnamese” community’s relationship to their homeland.
The United States- Japan Art Programs Grant which I received in 2003 from the Asian Cultural Council in New York was one of the greatest opportunities of my career, and enabled me to research Japanese art and culture in Kyoto.
43 I was strongly influenced by the Japanese artistic aesthetic at an early age and, over the years, developed a deep admiration for their elegance. While staying in Japan I saw examples of an intriguing intersection of contemporary art, economic systems and technological development. Recently, the traditional family structure has been challenged by what could be termed ”Cultural Collision”, or conflicts between traditional values and modern achievement, as well as conflicts between generations. This process of ”Cultural Collision” has also been happening in Vietnam, and at a rapidly accelerating pace. The older Japanese generation is still deeply traumatized by Japan’s defeat in World War II, while the younger generation is constantly under extreme pressure to perform in their highly developed society. The tension was palpable during my stay, and this tension was compounded by strong American cultural influences on younger Japanese.
Figure 3.8 Le thua Tien, Origami lotus, Yupo paper, 10 x 10 x 8cm, Kyoto, Japan 2003.
Significantly, this Japanese residency afforded me the chance to visit various temples and shrines in the region. In Ryoanji temple in Kyoto I discovered a lotus origami on a shrine, where someone had left it as an offering. This singular observation became a new inspiration to make the installation called Field of Dreams, a few months later when I participated in another Japanese artist-in-residency at ARCUS, Ibaraki Prefecture.
44 During my time designing the project at ARCUS, the staff recommended that I study origami with the famous origami master Sono Kaori. Under her instruction, I first learned the basic technique, history, and meaning of origami in Japanese traditional culture. I then conducted intensive research on the various uses and forms of origami in Buddhism and Shinto rituals. I chose to use the lotus as a typical symbol of purity in Asian cultures. Traditionally, Japanese people made origami as a means, to carry their worldly wishes on to their ancestors. It is a strong and meaningful way to communicate spiritually between people, their God and their ancestors (this is relevant for Buddhist as well as Shinto religions).
Figure 3.9 Le thua Tien, Field of Dreams Origami lotus workshop, Ibaraki Prefectural Building, Japan 2003
With generous assistance from ARCUS, I ran many workshops at the Ibaraki Prefecture Building, with over 200 local people and young elementary school students from the local prefecture participating. Participants were invited to fold
45 Lotus flowers on paper that illustrated their personal hopes and dreams, eventually totalling three thousand flowers that were incorporated into an outdoors installation. The single flowers visually represented individuals while simultaneously symbolizing the community, when grouped together.
The process of collaboration which allows wide community input is in keeping with Buddhist ideas of energy transference and selflessness. The boundaries between the art object and the surroundings disappeared as the environment became part of the art installation and the installation became part of the environment. The circle remains unbroken.
Figure 3.10 Le thua Tien, Field of Dreams, 3.000 lotus origami, Moriya city, Japan, 2003.
The Field of Dreams continued in 2006, for the Songlines Festival in the Blue Mountains, Australia, as a collaborative project with Australian artist, Nerine Martini. The Field of Dreams was developed to focus on the significance of the Waratah flower within Australian culture and to make a cultural comparison
46 between the Waratah flower and the lotus flower. Thousands of the white origami Lotus flowers were installed along with the red origami Waratah flowers made by members of the Blue Mountains community, symbolizing the meeting of cultures, people and place.
Martini describes the outcomes of the community art installation in this way, “The aim of the Field of Dreams was to imbue our understanding of the environment with greater meaning and poetic association. Focusing on the significance of the Waratah within Australian culture allowed people to explore symbolism, icons, mythology, spirituality and ecology. During school workshops we explored the actual and the symbolic aspects of our relationship with nature and the stories behind our associations by cross referencing similar relationships in other cultures. The Field of Dreams presented the Blue Mountains community with an opportunity to celebrate and to acknowledge our custodianship of both the immediate surroundings of the lake as well as the greater Blue Mountains.”8
Figures 3.11 Nerine Martini, Le thua Tien, Volunteers installing Field of Dreams, Wentworth Falls Lake, Blue Mountains, NSW, 2006.
47
Memory and Reflection
Memory has its own distinct nature – its own life. It stays with you, living inside you as part of your consciousness. As it develops, it can grow or even decay in your mind, somehow in an unconscious way. Memory needs time and distance to cook, to brew, to ripen.
The practice of meditation has helped me realize that by looking deeply into my own mind, with singular concentration, I can actually retrieve or coax deeply embedded memory back to the present moment. This helps me to have a chance to look at it from a distance, to be face to face but apart from it, just simply to look at it as if it was somebody else’s memory.
In that state of mind, I have been able to start a dialogue with my own memories, as I would do with a close old friend. As I establish calmness and tranquility, I am able to further my understanding of the memory and I can clarify what it really is. I then start to be able to conduct a dialogue with the myriad resentments in my mind. I might wonder why it is taking so long for this reunion, the reunion of myself with that elemental resentment that was hiding in my mind for many years. I wouldn’t say that I am able to get through any comprehensive process of dialogue with my own memories. I just sometimes feel the need to express what pent up burdens I have carried for so many years.
Distance also creates the space for my memories to be revealed with a different quality of light, color and scent - somehow taking on a new perspective. When I was away from my homeland, I felt that I was much more capable to of dealing with my memories, and it seemed easier for me to bring memory back into the present moment. This process of looking at memory from a distance creates a disconnection in time and space, from when and where the memories were created. The actual memories become more abstract, timeless and universal.
My remembrance produced specific and concrete experiences from time to time. The first time, when I was in Holland in 1996 I designed the project: Vietnam- the Fossilized War. The second time, was more recent. I was staying in a small place in the Blue Mountains, in NSW, during the winter of 2007, working on a sculpture for
48 my MFA program. Meditation led me to the awareness and compassion that helps me deal directly with my suffering, and the loss of my family members almost forty years ago.
Making artwork has taken me to many countries. I have had more opportunity to talk to people who are from the other side of the war, to sense how they live, and to listen to their personal stories. I understand more of their suffering and their trauma, and how they have been since returning to their homeland. I found out how they deal with their trauma, their family and their social relationships.
My stay in Australia over the last two years has provided me with profound experiences. I have learnt about Australian history and people. I feel fortunate to have been in Australia on the “Sorry Day” in 2007, as it was a most momentous event in Australia history - it was a brave gesture by the people of Australia to go forward from the deep complexity of the “stolen generation”. This effort writes a brighter chapter in Australian history. “Sorry Day” starts a journey of healing and reconciliation between the land and the people in this country.
On the Anzac Day of 2007 in Sydney, I learnt about the story of Barry Heard, the author of the book Well Done, Those Men. After his national service in Vietnam, Barry came back to Australia but could not settle down; changing jobs unexpectedly is one manifestation and struggled to find a place in the society. His book reveals his Vietnam War-related experiences and the trail to his breakdown due to severe post-traumatic stress disorder. Barry spoke at the Ivanhoe Library on Thursday 17 January about his endeavour of his book Well Done, Those Men: He said “Writing was a pathway to my recovery”9. Through the act of writing he makes personal journey to find peace of mind.
In previous my project, VN - The Fossilized War,1997, I used a few seconds of film footage from the war with an audio confession of the poet William Erhardt about witnessing the mindless shooting of an unarmed fleeing woman, an act that forever plagued him. Memories of atrocities are haunting for many people, but the experience of the war brutality is not any less painfully evocative, particularly to those who returned from an unpopular war and were not welcome back into their own society. Ray Beattie is one of them.
49
Figure 3.12 Ray Beattie, Image for a dead man, synthetic polymer paint, collage on canvas, 218,5 x 145 cm, 1980.
After returning from Vietnam in 1971, Ray became an artist and taught at Curtin University for a few years and then taught at Queensland College of Art for 20 years. Ray has struggled with trauma, due to the lingering memories of the war and a sense of being denied. The ordeal was so taxing that he finally had to quit his job.
In one of many interviews with him at his studio in Western Sydney during 2007- 2008, Ray said: “When making art one needs to find the right space where you start creating. It is a process of mediation.” As I came to know more about his art and life, I realised that he is not just makes art that simply reflects his deep feelling of guilt or loss, Ray makes art that give room for his memories to be transformed. By dedicating to art that deals with his direct experiences of war, he is taking a journey into his interior world, a personal journey of self- transforming.
50
Figure 3.13 Le thua Tien, Anzac day 2007 in Lawson, Blue Mountain NSW Australia.
Another inspirational experience during my time in Australia has come from Bac Bay, a 76 years old Buddhist Vietnamese whom I met in Cabramatta, Western Sydney early last year. He served in the South Vietnamese Navy. After the communists took over the south of Vietnam in 1975 thousands of Vietnamese people tried to flee the country. Bac Bay escaped the country with his family by navigating a small fishing boat to Australia. During the trip he witnessed the drowning of many people attempting to cross the ocean in tiny fishing boats. People died because the engines in their boats broke, they were floating so many days on the sea hoping to be rescued; they ran out food, water and gasoline. To add to these traumatic experiences women were raped by Thai pirates in the Siamese Gulf.
Bac Bay and his family arrived on Australian shores early in 1980. Many years after settling down in a new land, he still struggles with trauma from his experiences. At 78, he has been collecting donated wheelchairs in his community. He then sends them back to help disabled people in Vietnam, particularly the children who were affected by the Agent Orange, or dioxin. His work also aids Vietnamese Veterans. He mentioned in one of my interviews with him in November 2007, that what he
51 and people in his group have been doing is motivated by the concept of Engage Buddhism10, which encourages people really to take “action” to help others. By helping others, he can finally find calmness of mind, his suffering and resentment has been healed. His activities have also been inspired by the insight of His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s statement:
"It is easier to meditate than to actually do something for others. I feel that merely to meditate on compassion is to take the passive option. Our meditation should form the basis for action, for seizing the opportunity to do something."11
Bac Bay’s hands are the model for my Hands sculpture, which will be discussed in the following chapter.
.
Figure 3.14 Le Thua Tien, Hands, Bac Bay( left) modeling for life cast of his hands, Cabramatta, Sydney NSW 2007
52
1 Lin-Chi hsüan (d. 866). T'ang dynasty Chinese Ch'an monk and founder of the Lin-chi school. the most successful and widespread of the ‘Five Houses’ of Ch'an, and became the ascendant line of the Rinzai school of zen in Japan. He is perhaps best known for his dictum, ‘If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill the Buddha’, through which he attempted to turn students' attention away from external images and teachers so that they could discover the truth about themselves. According to the Buddhism Scholar Tran Van Giap, and are based on his 1927 discovery of the Thien Uyen Tap Anh (A Collection of Outstanding Figures of the Zen Community): The Lin Chi (Japanese: Rinzai) School gets to Vietnam around the 11th century. Thich Nhat Hanh makes the 42nd generation of the School. http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O108-LinchiIhsan.html [access: 6 11 2008] See also: http://www.woodmoorvillage.org/2005/08/the_tu_hieu_lin.html [access: 6 11 2008]
2 http://buddhism.kalachakranet.org/resources/buddhist_quotes.html [access: November 6, 2008]
3 Tathagata means: ‘One who has come to Truth’ or ‘One who has discovered Truth’. This is term usually used by the Buddha referring to himself and to the Buddas in general. See: Tathagata, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tath%C4%81gata [access: 6 11 2008]
4 David C. Thomas, ed. : As Seen by Both Sides: American and Vietnamese Artists Look at the War Indochina Arts Project and the William Joiner Foundation, Boston, University of Massachusetts Press 1991, p.7
5 Westad, O. A. and Quinn-Judge, S. Eds. The Third Indochina War: Conflict between China, Vietnam and Cambodia 1972-1979, Oxon and New York, Routledge 2006.
6 Le Thua Tien, Vietnam- The fossilized War, Artist’s statement, 1996.
7 Bradford Edward, 1+1 Exhibition, Vietnam News Magazine, September 1999.
8 Nerine Martini. Tributaries: public art, connecting & reflecting people & place. Master of Fine Arts Thesis, College of Fine Arts, UNSW, Sydney 2007. P.24
9 Barry Heard, Feature Author, December 2007- January 2008. Barry spoke at the Ivanhoe Library on Thursday 17 January about his personal experiences during the Vietnam war in his book 'Well done, those men' As part of the Reading Victoria Campaign 'The Summer Read' http://yarrabooks.pbwiki.com/Feature%20Author [accessed November 12, 2008]
10 Thich Nhat Hanh the world-renowned Vietnamese Buddhist peace activist, coined the term “Engaged Buddhism” in the late 1960s. The “Engaged” part of the phrase signifies the application of one’s spiritual practice on a social scale. http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Buddhism/2006/07/Engaged-Buddhists.aspx [access: 12 11 2008].
53
11 Kimberty Jordan Allen, Engage Buddhist; Spiritual eco-activists defend the planet by helping us realize that we’re all one, Available online at: http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Buddhism/2006/07/Engaged-Buddhists.aspx [access: November 12, 2008]
54 Chapter 4
Three Current Projects
In the last two years, while undertaking the MFA program at COFA, I have been focusing on three main installation / sculptural projects: The War is in Our Souls; Buddha’s Smile; and Hands. The War is in Our Souls is a continuation of my use of light and shadow in earlier artworks.
The War is in Our Souls1
The installation Untitled (Japan, 2003) was a work in which I used burnt branches hanging in space to create Text.
Figure 4.1 Le Thua Tien, Untitled,. Burnt branches, light, 4x 2x 8m. Japan 2003
The shadows, cast from the branches moving across the walls spelt the words: “Where Do We Come From? What are we? Where are we going? This was taken from the title of a painting by Paul Gauguin2.
55 Technically, heat from the spotlights circulates air in the room, which gently moved the suspended branches. Balanced close to the lights, they block the light source from time to time, to create a text which is constantly changing.
- -
Figure 4.2 Le Thua Tien, Untitled, burnt branches, light, 4x 2x 8m. Japan 2003 Detail.
The catalogue for the Arcus Project in Japan said: “Le Thua Tien took interest in using materials collected locally in Moriya City from the early stage of his residency. He picked up branches from trees in parks and sands from the riverbank for his installation. He quotes: Where do we come from, what are we, where are we going? (1897) by Paul Gauguin in his installation that transformed his studio into subtle and profound space”3
The concept of uncertainty implied by the quote is presented as both language and a visual message. By exploring this visual transformation I seek to emphasize the relationship between man and nature; a contrast between natural forms (branches) and man-made constructs (text). The instability of light and shadow and reflection is presented as a metaphor of the spiritual
56 reflections on the nature of life- the three fundamental questions in catechism concepts. In parallel, the three dimensional object that is transformed into language is illuminated by light to create shadows, revealing the relationship between Form and Emptiness in Buddhist philosophy.
In further research I continued to explore the manipulation of light and incorporated other elements such as water and branches into the work. In early 2007, I started to use a quote from the Vietnamese Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh for the text: The War is in Our Souls in Vietnamese and English. However, due to the lack of time and the difficulty in finding an appropriate space in which to install the work, I was not able to exhibit the work.
Below, is an image of the progress I made working in a garage in the Blue Mountain, NSW, during the winter of 2007.
Figure 4.3 Le thua tien The War is in Our Souls4 (Burnt branches, light, 2,5x 1,2x 5m). Lawson, Blue Mountains NSW, Australia 2007.
57 I am also considering a continuation of the use of the poetry of Matsuo Basho 松尾芭蕉 (1644-1694)5, for the text in Japanese, Vietnamese, and English. I have chosen these languages to communicate the beauty of the words of Basho to international audiences. I aim to take this installation to Japan to follow the journey of Basho himself.
I believe this installation will also be well received in Vietnam, as haiku is very popular with the Vietnamese people. I am hopeful Australian audiences also share this interest. I am currently researching Basho- hís journeys and poems, contacting people in Japan and Vietnam for assistance with the translation, calligraphy and preparing materials for this work. I am considering the following poems for my installation:
#1. #2. #3. Japanese: Japanese: Japanese:
行春や 古池 静けさや 鳥啼魚の 蛙飛び込む 岩に染み入る 水の音 目は泪 蝉の声
Vietnamese: Vietnamese: Vietnamese:
Mùa xuân ra đi Ao xưa Tiếng ve kêu-- Tiếng chim thổn Con ếch nhảy vào Thấu xuyên vào thức Tiếng nước xao. đá
Mắt cá lệ đầy. Trong miền
Translated by Nhật quạnh hiu Translated by Nhật Chiêu Chiêu Translated by Nhật
English: Chiêu English: : Spring passes, The old pond-- English: And the birds a frog jumps in, crying out sound of water. stillness-- Tear- the cicada’s cry In the eyes of drills into the fishes. rocks.
Translated by Robert Translated by Robert Translated by Robert Hass Hass Hass
58 The artworks Buddha’s Smile, and Hands made using topographic techniques instead of using a 3D digital scanner. Both of these works began with the process of building up layers. The Buddha’s Smile was made from clay then cast in plaster. I then reduced the forms, by grinding it off layer by layer. As the layers dissolved I made a paper template of each layer and photocopied this design.
This process allows the sculpture to be made in a wide variety of sizes by using a photocopy machine to duplicate and enlarge the layers. In this way they can be reproduced at different scales and in different materials. Through the daily methodical process of casting, I experienced time in slow motion. This daily working rhythm became one with my meditation practice.
Buddha’s Smile
I was initially inspired by a Buddha’s head sculpture that I saw at an art auction in Leiden Art Museum, Netherlands, in 1996. The head could have come from somewhere in South East Asia, maybe even stolen, possibly from Cambodia as it is in the Khmer style. What struck me as profound and visceral was the quietly beautiful smile I felt emanating from the sculpture. I started wondering about how it came to be there in Europe – was it taken from a temple or pagoda? Adopting a different historical perspective, I began imagining how interesting it was that this peaceful smile had taken long a journey to the West. For a moment, it seemed to be that a message of peace and tranquility had been sent from one place to another. It reminded me of a central idea in Buddhist philosophy concerning the notion of impermanence, so that even a Buddha statue can be in a perpetual state of impermanence.
This idea of impermanence became the same central concept which inspired me to make the first sketch of a sculpture called Path a few years later. By recognizing and acknowledging that Buddha heads have long been traded as collectible antiques in the international marketplace, I had an idea to make a sculpture that says the Buddha continues to smile, no matter what the
59 circumstances are. Also, I had the notion of bringing a version of it, specifically my own version, back to where it came from. That smile somehow awakened me, illuminated a deep and soulful place within my heart. Soon after, I made a small clay model of that very Buddha smile based on a single photograph from that special day at the Museum in Leiden.
Figure 4.4 Buddha head, stone
32 x 25 x 36cm, Collection of National Museum of Antiquities, Leiden, The Netherlands.
In 2002, I took a trip to the majestic and awe inspiring Angkor Wat
Temple complex in Cambodia6 to find out more about the mysterious smile I had discovered on that Buddha head. Cambodia, in pure and tragic irony, has examples of some of the best and the worst of man’s actions. That country hosts perhaps the most amazing man made structure in Angkor Wat, along with the horrifying genocide of a country systematically killing itself under the Khmer Rogue.
The Bayon temple complex is a stunning symbol of the human transition from hopelessness to happiness. But what really impressed me was the optimistic and positive lifestyle of the Khmer people, many of whom had very little in material resources.
60
Figure 4.5 Le Thua Tien, Buddha’s smile, clay, 35 x 47 x 65, 2007.
There has been suffering throughout Indochina, but in this tiny country you can witness the evidence of conflict everywhere. I visited the blind massage studio in Siem Riep, which reminded me of the maimed people of Quang Tri, in the DMZ in Vietnam. In Quang Tri the workers were people wounded by landmines. More than 40,0007 Cambodians have suffered amputations as a result of mine injuries since 1979. That represents an average of nearly forty victims a week for a period of twenty years. Even so, many of the Khmers whom I met tended to talk about the future rather than the past – they walked forward.
I realized that there is a direct and relevant relationship between the smile of the Bayon Buddha from 800 years ago, and the smile of people today, whether in Cambodia or Vietnam. It is the smile that goes beyond suffering. This recognition of the power of that smile helped me to tackle the questions: Where does the smile come from? Do Buddhist doctrines and wisdom become a source of spiritual power that helps to heal the pain of the past in people?
61
Figure 4.6 Le thua Tien, Jayavarman's state temple-The Bayon, Siem Riep, Cambodia, 2001.
Figure 4.7 Landmine clearance Operation in Quang Tri Province Vietnam, 2006.
62 I intend to suspend the sculpture above a pond of water, to resemble the shape of a bomb crater. The works will be lit by a continuous, changing source of focused light in a similar frequency to my own breathing in meditation practice. The timing of the loops is approximately twenty seconds from bright to dim light and reverse. The reflection of the Buddha’s smile created by the pond will be continually interrupted by single drops of water from the ceiling. The ripple effect will make the image fade and then return to a still reflection, creating a visual metaphor of impermanence. There is a connection between memories from the past and its reflection in the present moment. The installation aims to offer a breathing space, a place for reflection, self-transformation and healing.
Figure 4.8 Le Thua Tien, Buddha’s smile, paper mache, sand, light sensor, water pond 300 x 300 x 300cm, 2007-2009.
63
Figure 4.9 Figure 4.12
Figure 4.10 Figure 4.13
Figure 4.11 Figure 4.14
Figure 3.22- 3.23-3.24 Le thua Tien, Figure 3.25-3.26-3.27 Le thua Tien, Buddha’s smile, The process of grinding Buddha’s smile, The process of off and recording paper template of the reconstructing from the paper layers. template into paper mache sculpture.
64 Hands
This work is a large cast of praying hands. In 1997 after I discovered the writing of Ajhan Chan and the teaching of Thich Nhat Hanh, my mind was opened to the possibility of using art to create a calm and contemplative physical environment for meditation. This is the central concept that I want to realize materially, in the form of the sculpture Hands. It is what I describe as a "mobile sculpture" or a touring sculptural project that will travel within Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam.
Figure 4.15 Le Thua Tien, Hands, life- cast hands of Bac Bay, plaster, 8 x 28 x 37cm, 2007.
The sculpture of large hands in a praying gesture symbolizes the important role of Buddhism in healing, and in the transformation in peace time after the Vietnam/American War. This work is an installation that will make a direct and visceral connection between Buddhism and War. I have been contemplating how the Vietnamese people can transform all their suffering from the war into a positive expression of life. I believe the concepts of Buddhism are a way to help people to forgive and to overcome the darkness of the past.
65 The original hands were cast from a living model, (Bac Bay). I used the same process of grinding off layers of plaster to create a topographical plan that can be photocopied and reproduced at any size and in different materials.
This work is fabricated in Raku style ceramic, measuring 104cm high, 86cm width, 65 length. Three casts hands are arranged in a line, with ash and charcoal powder sprinkled over them. The work was inspired by the brick walls in the Hue Citadel and other historical relics in the Hue region.
Figure 4.16 Le Thua Tien, Hands, raku style ceramic, 65 x 86 x 104cm each, 2007.
The hands are built up by laying down exactly 100 layers of Styrofoam and then reproduced in ceramic. The three pairs of hands will represent the three major regions of Vietnam, North, Central and South Vietnam which were divided artificially during the French Colonial period and by the 1954 Accords.
By arranging the three figures in line I want to impart an idea of reunification, and a reconciliation of the land and people. The number three
66 also has a meaning in Buddhist philosophy, referring to the triad, Past, Present and Future.
Hands will participate in the group exhibition Nam Bang! at the Casula Powerhouse, Liverpool, Sydney from 4 April to 21 June, 2009, curated by Boitran Huynh-Beattie.
“Nam Bang!” is an examination of the aftermath of the Vietnam War from an international and intergenerational perspective. The project aims to further present the complexity of Australia's involvement in the Viet Nam War from the perspective of the second generation. Nam Bang! will include artists from Vietnam, Australia, Europe and North America. This project will explore the psychological impact that remains after the Viet Nam War, with a particular emphasis on the manipulative effect of power, ideology and a total disregard for natural life. Although the Viet Nam War may have ended more than 30 years ago, the physical and psychological scars it has left, and the social rifts it has created, are still fresh and very much evident in the countries affected by the War. Naturally, for many of those involved, the legacies of the conflict will persist for generations to come8
Figure 4.17 Le thua Tien, the Champa brick tower, Pô Klong Garai, Ninh Thuan province, Central of Vietnam, 2000.
67
1 Thich Nhat Hanh, Love in Action, Writings on social changes. Parallax Press Berkeley, California. Chapter six, The root of war, P. 81 2 Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin (1848 –1903), French, Post-Impressionist painter. Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? (D'où Venons Nous / Que Sommes Nous / Où Allons Nous); is one of Paul Gauguin's most famous paintings. Created in Tahiti, it is currently housed at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Gauguin [accessed December 23, 2007]
3 Arcus Project 2003 Catalogue, P.17
4 Thich Nhat Hanh, Love in Action, Writings on social changes. Parallax Press Berkeley, California. Chapter six, The root of war, P. 81
5 Matsuo Bashō (Japanese: 松尾芭蕉, 1644 - 1694) was the most famous poet of the Edo period in Japan. He is known as the greatest maker of haiku, a kind of poetry in 5-7-5 syllables.
6 Angkor Thom was the last and most enduring capital city of the Khmer empire. It was established in the late twelfth century by king Jayavarman VII. At the centre of the city is Jayavarman's state temple, the Bayon. Angkor Thom is 7.2 km north of Siem Rieap, Cambodia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angkor_Thom [accessed: April 14, 2007]
7 Stuart Hughes,: Cambodia’s landmine victims, BBC Cambodia. November 11, 2003. Available online at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3259891.stm [accessed: November, 22 11 2008]
8 Boitran Huynh-Beattie, Project Proposal, Casula Powerhouse, 2008
68 Conclusion
“There is no way to peace, peace is the way”. A.J Muste1
By following the tenets of Buddhism I have developed a deep awareness of how materials change from one form to another. Yet making artwork is not only a transformation of the material world but, more importantly, is a transformation within the mind and soul of the maker. In the long never ending journey of "self reflection about the non-self" I became aware that I was making something, with a deep awareness, that it will not last forever. As a Buddhist proverb states:
“The lives of sentient beings are like clay pots destined to break sooner or later”2.
Materials themselves have specific spiritual energy. However, the act of transforming a substance from one form to another, through sculptural processes, potentially adds a deeper meaning to it. When you look at a sculpture, a statue of Buddha for instance, you are not only seeing a simple 3D object, but also a vision of the "fourth dimension". This can raise the fundamental question of "what happened?" What is the invisible essence behind the sculpture? Where does the energy come from that drove or motivated the artist to make it? To address these questions does requires the capacity to "see" completely truly or objectively. Imagination will help one to understand the process of how material has been taken, beyond its initial physical appearance. The topographic technique based on meditative principles and the influence of Buddhism applied in these projects has brought me to a new perspective, it has encouraged me to produce artworks with a wider vision and with complete artistic freedom.
This process of transforming elemental materials from one form to another (elemental materials like water and plaster) into solid plaster shapes, and then
69 grinding it off, a pure act of destruction, fascinates me. Through this work I can witness the substantial nature of all materials, their inherent sense of impermanence. I've come to the realization of how fragile and impermanent things are, even, or especially, in a completed artwork. This is part of the cumulative experience that leads to an individual's recognition of the impermanence and constant vicissitudes of life. Producing physical artwork and the process of concentration and self- transformation became one. Means and goals are one.
The following poem perfectly describes my feeling of being completely lost when making art. It is from the Dharma talk by a Thai Venerable Ajhan Chan; an influential teacher of the Buddhadharma and a founder of two major monasteries in the Thai Forest Tradition.
“Do not try to become anything. Do not make yourself into anything. Do not be a meditator. Do not become enlightened. When you sit, let it be. What you walk, let it be. Grasp at nothing. Resist nothing.
If you haven't wept deeply, you haven't begun to meditate.” 3
Working on these two projects, I was truly lost in my actions, forgetting myself altogether, free from self-consciousness. This state of being and creating together, from a spiritual perspective, is to live in the present moment. Buddhism has enabled me to reflect on my experiences of the trauma of war and to transform these memories into an objective artistic form. This provides me with a new perspective; this is the journey from war to inner peace. My art practice parallels the meditation process. Peace starts from the absence of war; peace comes with the absence of the self.
70
1 Abraham Johannes Muste (1885 –1967) socialist active in the pacifist movement, labor movement and the US civil rights movement. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._J._Muste [accessed: October 5, 08]
2 Apinan Poshyananda, Montien Boonma Temple of the mind, Asia Society, New York, Published in association with Asia Ink, London, 2003.
3 Ajahn Chan, A view on Buddhism, Buddhist Quotes and Sayings, http://buddhism.kalachakranet.org/resources/buddhist_quotes.html [access 6 11 2008]
71 Acknowledgments
I am grateful to my supervisors, Martin Sims, and Bonita Ely for guiding me through the Master of Fine Arts and providing valuable advice and encouragement. I am grateful to Annette van den Bosch who generously read my paper and offered professional advice.
I would like to thank many friends who have helped with feedback and encouragement during my Master of Fine Arts research in particular Bradford Edwards, Kon Gouriotis, Ray Beattie, BoiTran Huynh Beattie, Nerine Martini, Terry Reed, Sue Pedley, Nicole Ellis, Judy Barnsley and Mark Scott. Thanks also to the Casula Powerhouse for providing me with an opportunity to exhibit my MFA works in February 2009.
I’d like to extend my thanks to Graeme Macintosh for his generosity, wonderful skills and great support in my Hands sculpture; Tom Coley, Ton That Minh Nhat and Keiko Suzuki for their help with my works, their friendship and generosity.
I am grateful to the Bac Bay ( Ly thanh Trinh), Vo Quoc Linh, and Hoang Ngoc Tuan, Nerine Martini and Cath Barcan, for their encouragement and support during my stay in Australia and for sharing their stories.
72 Illustrations
Figure 1.1 Page 5
Hue, February 24, 1968. Members of the US 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment move through a secured part of Hue as the battle for the city winds down.
Photograph: NATIONAL ARCHIVES, http://www.armchairgeneral.com/1968-tet- offensive-remembered.htm [accessed: December 6, 2008]
Figure 2.1 Page 13 Thien Mu Pagoda, Hue city, Vietnam Photograph: Le Thua Tien
Figure 2.2 Page 21 Bill Viola, Catherine’s room, 2001 Museum De Pont: The Collection, Bill Viola, http://www.depont.nl/en/collection/the- collection/werk_id/405/kunstenaar/49/[accessed June 27, 2008] Photograph: Kira Perov
Figure 2.3 Page 23 Lee Mingwei, The Letter Writing Project, Mixed media interactive installation Photograph: http://www.leemingwei.com/mingwei-web/mingweiFrameset-1.htm [accessed June 27, 2008]
Figure 2.4 Page 25 Montien Boonma, Temple of the mind, 1995. (wood, brass bells, medicinal herbs, 320 x 270 cm) Collection of the National Gallery of Australia. Photograph: Poshyananda, Apinan, Montien Boonma Temple of the Mind, Public by Sherry Buchanan, in association with Asian Ink ( London) and Asian Society (New York), 2003. Page 107
Figure 2.5 Page 26 Montien Boonma, Lotus sound, 1992, terracotta lotus cover with gold 300 x 350 x 300cm, Collection Photograph courtesy of Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, Australia. Photograph: Poshyananda, Apinan, Montien Boonma Temple of the Mind, Public by Sherry Buchanan, in association with Asian Ink ( London) and Asian Society (New York), 2003. Page 95
Figure 2.6 Page 28 Katsushige Nakahashi, Walking Zero project, Seattle, 2001.
73 Photograph: Katsushige Nakahashi http://online.sfsu.edu/~amkerner/memory/nakahashi.htm/ [accessed: November 18, 2008] Figure 2.7 Page 29 Katsushige Nakahashi, Zero in Hawaii, Thursday, December 14, 2006. The Burning of ZERO #BII-120 Photograph: http://online.sfsu.edu/~amkerner/memory/index.html [accessed: November 19, 2008]
Figure 3.1 Page 33 Le Thua Tien, Shadow, helmets, wire, photograph size variable, House of the World Cultures, Berlin, 1999. Photograph Le Thua Tien
Figure 3.2 Page 34 Le Thua Tien, Mediation space, slide projector, slide film, rice, bamboo, incense sticks, pillows. Amsterdam, 1996. Photograph Le Thua Tien
Figure 3.3 Page 35 Le Thua Tien, Path, plaster marques 60 x 60 x 65cm, 1998. Photograph Le Thua Tien
Figure 3.4 Page 37 Le Thua Tien, Vietnam- The fossilized War, plaster figures, chairs, 6 minutes video clips, size variable,1997- 1999. Photograph Le Thua Tien
Figure 3.5 Page 39 Le Thua Tien, Vietnam- The fossilized War, plaster figures, chairs, 6 minutes video clips, size variable,1997- 1999. Photograph Le Thua Tien
Figure 3.6 Page 40 Pillars of Healing Bradford Edward and Le Thua Tien, paper casting, 200 x 200 x 380cm, 1997 Photograph Le Thua Tien
Figure 3.7 Page 43 Le Thua Tien, Paper boats, 6 x 8 x 20cm each, 7,000 items. Vung Tau, Long Hai, Vietnam, 2000. Photograph Le Thua Tien
Figure 3.8 Page 44 Le Thua Tien, Origami lotus, Yupo paper, 10 x 10 x 8cm, Kyoto, Japan 2003. Photograph Le Thua Tien
74 Figure 3.9 Page 45 Le Thua Tien, Field of Dreams Origami lotus workshop, Ibaraki Prefectural Building, Japan 2003 Photograph Le Thua Tien
Figure 3.10 Page 46 Le Thua Tien, Field of Dreams, 3.000 lotus origami, Moriya city, Japan, 2003. Photograph Le Thua Tien
Figures 3.11 Page 47 Nerine Martini, Le Thua Tien, Volunteers installing Field of Dreams, Wentworth Falls Lake, Blue Mountains, NSW, 2006. Photograph Cath Barcan
Figure 3.12 Page 50 Ray Beattie, Image of a dead man, synthetic polymer paint, collage on canvas, 218,5 x 145 cm, 1980. Photograph Ray Beattie
Figure 3.13 Page 51 Le thua Tien, Anzac day 2007 in Lawson, Blue Mountain NSW Australia. Photograph Le thua Tien
Figure 3.14 Page 52 Le Thua Tien, Hands, Bac Bay( left) modeling for life cast of his hands, Cabramatta, Sydney, NSW, 2007. Photograph Le Thua Tien
Figure 4.1 Page 55 Le Thua Tien, Untitled, Japan 2003. Burnt branches, light, 4x 2x 8m. Photograph Le Thua Tien
Figure 4.2 Page 56 Le Thua Tien, Untitled, Japan 2003. Burnt branches, light, 4x 2x 8m. Detail.. Photograph Le Thua Tien
Figure 4.3 Page 57 Le thua tien The War is in Our Souls (burnt branches, light, 2,5x 1,2x 5m). Lawson, Blue Mountains NSW, Australia 2003. Photograph Le thua Tien
75 Figure 4.4 Page 60 Buddha head, stone 32 x 25 x 36cm, Collection of National Museum of Antiquities, Leiden, The Netherlands. Photograph Irma van de Wit
Figure 4.5 Page 61 Le Thua Tien, Buddha’s smile, clay, 35 x 47 x 65, 2007. Photograph Le Thua Tien
Figure 4.6 Page 62 Le Thua Tien, Jayavarman's state temple-The Bayon, Siem Riep, Cambodia, 2001. Photograph Le Thua Tien
Figure 4.7 Page 62 Landmine clearance Operation in Quang Tri Province Vietnam, 2006. Photograph Sashaan Shapeshifter
Figure 4.8 Page 63 Le Thua Tien, Buddha’s smile, paper mache, sand, light sensor, water pond 300 x 300 x 300cm, 2008-2009. Photograph Le Thua Tien
Figure 4.9- 4.10- 4.11 Page 64 Le Thua Tien, Buddha’s smile, The process of grinding off and recording paper template of the layers. Photograph Le Thua Tien
Figure 4.12- 4.13- 4.14 Page 64 Le Thua Tien, Buddha’s smile, The process of reconstructing from the paper template into paper mache sculpture. Photo by Le Thua Tien.
Figure 4.15 Page 65 Le Thua Tien, Hands, life-cast hands of Bac Bay, plaster, 8 x 28 x 37cm, 2007. Photograph Le thua Tien
Figure 4.16 Page 66 Le Thua Tien, Hands, raku style ceramic, 65 x 86 x 104cm each, 2007. Photograph Le thua Tien
Figure 4.17 Page 67 Le Thua Tien, the Champa brick tower, Pô Klong Garai, Ninh Thuan province, Central of Vietnam, 2000. Photograph Le thua Tien
76 Bibliography
Books and Book Chapters
Bass, Jacquelynn and Jacob, Mary Jane (ed) Buddha Mind in Contemporary Art, University of California Press, Berkeley Los Angeles London 2004.
Basho, Matsuo, The narrow road to the Deep North, Translated from Japanese with an Introduction by Nobuyuki Yuasa, Penguin Books, 1996.
Buddhaghosa, Bhadantacariya, The Path of Purification (Visuddhimagga),Translated by Bhikkhu Nanamoli, Buddhist Publication Society, 1999.
Bui Nhu Huong (ed), Pham Trung (ed). Vietnam Contemporary Arts- 20 Years after Doi Moi ( 1986-2006), Fine Arts Publishing House, Hanoi 2007.
Chah, Ajahn , No Ajahn Chah- Reflections, Dharma Garden, 1994.
Chapman, John, ‘The 2005 Pilgrimage and Return to Vietnam of Exiled Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh’ 297-341 in Taylor, Phillip ed. Modernity and Re- Enchantment: Religion in Post-revolutionary Vietnam, Vietnam Update Series, Institute of South East Asian Studies, Singapore, 2007.
Churcher, Betty, The Art of War, The Miegunyah Press, 2004.
Ennis, E. Thomas, French Policy and developments in Indochina, The University of Chicago Press Chicago. Illinois, 193.
Gouriotis, Con, Thế Hệ, In between the 1.5 generation Viet-Aust, Published by Casula Powerhouse Arts Center, 2002.
Ham, Paul, Vietnam the Australian War, HarperCollins Publisher, 2007.
Harveys, Peter, An Introduce to Buddhism: Teaching, History and Practices, Cambridge University Press, 1993
77 Heard, Barry, Well Done, Those Men, Scribe Publications, 2007.
Harris, Ian, Buddhism and Politics in Twentieth Century Asia, Pinter, 1999. Original from the University of Virginia, Digitised Jul, 2007.
Le, Cuong Phu (ed), Buddha in Suburbia, Greater Western Sydney, Published and distributed by Casula Powerhouse Arts Center, 2005.
Ngoc Tuan, Hoang (ed), Cầu Nối - The Bridge, Anthology of Vietnamese- Australia Writing, Published by Casula Powerhouse Arts Center, 2004.
Poshyananda, Apinan, Montien Boonma Temple of the Mind, with Sherry Buchanan, in association with Asian Ink ( London) and Asian Society (New York), 2003.
Rahula, Walpola, ‘What the Buddha Taught, Grove Press New York, Copyright© 1959 by Rahula, Second and enlarged edition copyright© 1974 by W. Rahula.
Taylor, Phillip ed. ‘Modernity and Re-Enchantment: Religion in Post-revolutionary Vietnam’ 1-56 in Taylor, Phillip ed. Modernity and Re-Enchantment: Religion in Post-revolutionary Vietnam Vietnam Update Series, Institute of South East Asian Studies, Singapore, 2007.
Stoichita, Victor I., A Short History of the Shadow, Reaktion Books, 1997.
Thich Nhat Hanh, ‘Love in Action, Writing on Nonviolent Social Change, Parallax Press, Berkeley, California 1993.
Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace is every step- The path of mindfulness in everyday life, Bantam book 1991.
Thich Thien An, Zen Philosophy, Dharma Publishing, U.S.A, 1975.
Thompson, Virginia, French Indo-china, New York, The Macmillan Company, 1937.
Seear, Lynne (e), Raffel, Suhanya, The 5th Asian- Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Queensland Art Gallery Publishing, 2006.
78 Journals and Conference Papers
Van den Bosch, Annette, 2008, ‘Signs of grief, memory of violence and the suppression of freedom of expression in the work of three Vietnamese artists,’ Presented at the 17th Asian Studies Association of Australia Conference, ‘Is This the Asian Century?’ Monash Asia Institute, Melbourne 2008
Van den Bosch, Annette, 2008 “New Directions in Contemporary Vietnamese Art’ Post Doi Moi Conference, Singapore Art Museum, May, Publication: TK. Sabapathy (ed.) Post Doi Moi Art in Vietnam, Folio Art Anthology University of Singapore and Singapore Art Museum 2008.
Beevi Lam, Mariam ed, Zinoman, Peter ed, Journal of Vietnamese Studies, Volume 3, Number 3, Fall 2008.
Catalogues
Arcus Project 2003 catalogue, ARCUS artist in Residency- Ibaraki, Japan Lecht, Suzanne, curator and catalogue essay ‘Reflections’ with Martini, Nerine, ‘Reflection- self -reflection’ essay, Art Vietnam Gallery, Hanoi, Vietnam, 2006.
Magazine and Newspaper Reviews
Ibaraki Shimbun, Japan, Issue: Dec, 2003. World Sculpture News, Volume: Autumn 2000, Page 39-41 The Dallas Morning News, October 22, 1999. Boston Globe USA. Volume: 255, Number 92. Wednesday, September 30, 1998. Vietnam News, Volume April 4, 1999. Page 8 Leiden Morning News, Holland. Volume: Jan, 1996. Page 10 Fine Arts Tableau Magazine, Volume 18 – nr.3-December 1995, Page 82
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Interviews
Beattie, Ray, Personal Interview, May, 2007- October, 2008. Trinh, Thanh Ly (Bac Bay), Personal Interview, July 2007.
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