0395A.ĐC

The name for this ongoing project, 0395A-ÐC, started in 2011, is taken from fragments of numbers and letters I found online of a Vietnamese refugee boat. I interviewed a boat refugee named Kiệt Trương, who fled with his family from Vietnam after the Vietnam War. The project looks at the dislocation, immigration, and transformation of human l ives where most human belongings, identities, and heritage are lost during the voyage of transition. It explores how the fragments of memory are collaged, forming a new identity.

Throughout the solo exhibition about this project at The Factory Contemporary Arts Centre in 2017, particular visual elements – such as a boat, a house or water – are repeated (made transparent); their sizes enlarged (made significant), then shrunk (made minor); while others – such as names of people, landmarks or countries – are left in places away from the eyes (made opaque), or completely covered-up (made hidden). This disruptive, even violent act of scaling up/scaling down, magnifying/softening, crossing out details/giving them more attention, visualizing the not-yet-seen/de-visualising the can-notbe-seen, becomes the apparatus with which we use to navigate ‘0395A.ĐC’. It is of absolute necessity that Ly Hoàng Ly de-links the visual, the can-not-be-seen and can-not-be-spoken. By obscuring this information, thus revealing her own act of concealment, she sharply points to the memorizing and circulating of history – breaking it up, turning it back on itself, flipping it inside out.”

Incorporating different media – from text, painting, photography to sculpture, video and installation, this collaged body of work showcases Ly’s on-going inquiry into the epic story and continuous struggle of human (im)migration, whilst highlighting the contested nature of the memorisation, documentation and circulation of history.

This first solo exhibition about 0395A.ĐC also unveils Ly Hoàng Ly’s most ambitious work to date – the monumental public sculpture ‘boat home boat’, which hopes to be given a permanent home in a public space in Vietnam following this exhibition.

The second solo exhibition about 0395A.ĐC at Manzi Art Space in 2022 is a continuation with the title: “THE DREAMER: heterotopia, tabulara, noble silence.” Continuously digging into the conceptual and contextual weight of the subjects in study, while also expanding the visual, material, and experiential possibilities of both the overall project and its accompanying artworks – this way of working runs parallel with Ly’s examination of ideas of (dis)placement and rootlessness, illustrating the fluctuating and fluid nature of history and identity.