Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary (TBA21)

The bombing of several regions in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia during the Vietnam War (1955 to 1975) by the United States Armed Forces—what is considered the largest aerial bombardment in human history—left hundreds of thousands of unexploded ordnances hidden underground, that still pose a tremendous threat to local inhabitants today. In this film, Tuan Andrew Nguyen juxtaposes archival footage from the US army with recently recorded images of an unexploded ordnance (UXO) deactivation in the Vietnamese coastal province of Quảng Trị. The province is one of the main UXO hotspots in the Mekong region, with 8,540 casualties and 3,431 deaths recorded since the end of the Vietnam War. More widely, it is estimated that UXO explosions have caused 40,000 deaths in Vietnam; 29,000 in Laos, of which 40% are believed to be children; and more than 64,000 in Cambodia since the end of the war.

Deep in the tropical rainforest of Southeast Asia, a series of incantations invoke the spirits of yore, including those of the nimble, tricksy Kancil (mouse-deer) and the ferocious Buaya (crocodile). The ancient animals enact their folkloric vendetta in a furious dance of dominance, yet long-overdue vengeance is shrouded in smoke. Meanwhile, an effigy of a tree is burning, summoning a whole other host of spectres and ancestors. Conceived during the month of the Hungry Ghost Festival in 2019, while large-scale fires were consuming the forests of Indonesia, Yeo Siew Hua’s An Invocation to the Earth confronts climate collapse through the lens of pre-colonial folktales and animistic rituals. Through spoken spells and bodily entanglements, the video conjures up the fallen environmental defenders of a region ridden with ecological threats in the hope that their spirits will be reborn once again.

For most of our history, the ocean has been regarded as, if not a barrier, an adversary: something to be simultaneously exploited and feared. Ingo Niermann asks us to rethink our response to the fearful oceans, in hope of finding its hidden soul and reaching an understanding with it. In Sea Lovers Niermann offers us a whole chest of new models for reading, touching and feeling the sea. As the seaside theme parks of the early 20th century offered us a safe encounter with the novel and unsettling technologies of the age, could an underwater amusement park allow us closer interpersonal connection with other lifeforms? And just as the domestication of animals into emotional and affective companions made the forests ‘safe’ for our comprehension, could dolphins or cephalopods become our guides to the watery depths that were once our home? Could the salty touch of the ocean itself soften us towards accepting its wild and all-encompassing embrace?