Rice Grain
Nguyen Hoang Bao Ngoc
As the main food source of the Vietnamese people, the rice grain is a very familiar image. It is also the chosen subject matter of an exhibition this September in Vietnam that combines poetry, music and visual art. "Rice Grain" is an exhibition by artist Le Thiet Cuong, poet Tran Dang Khoa, musician Tran Nhat Tan, and photographers Duong Minh Long and Tran Quoc Khanh.
The yellow rice grain is the inspiration for Le Thiet Cuong’s sculpture works. In his works we see an abundance of shimmering crops or the rice grain enlarged by the transparent slices made of mica that is symbolic of a limpid sunbeam darting through the field in an early morning. Also on display are a selection of monochrome photos that show a reverence for the Vietnamese fields and the beauty of the women who work in them.
Nguyen Hoang Bao Ngoc: In Vietnam, contemporary music is rather new to the general public. How do you feel about this art form?
Tran Nhat Tan: Personally I think that contemporary music is what’s happening naturally in this age. So contemporary music is every kind of music that is currently going on. Some may consider it to be new age, jazz, DJ or dance music.
Le Thiet Cuong: In fact, it doesn’t really mean that. In music, the professional term "contemporary music" is used to indicate the scholarly music stream rooted in classical music. The exact wording in english is contemporary-classical music. Later it was abbreviated to contemporary music. Contemporary music is understood as music composed for a symphony orchestra, for performing in a concert, for performing a solo musical instrument, for a chorus orchestra. Modern and postmodern music from the second-half of the 20th century and current music are also called contemporary. At present, contemporary music is extended to include improvisation music, experimental music, electronic-computer music, or digital music, and some other variants like the use of sounds or street noise.
Ngoc: On hearing your work, the techniques of playing music are absolutely new. Can you give the audience some idea about this way of playing?
Tan: The method of striking the strings hard makes the listeners reflect on the sound of rain–drops of water falling in the field. The muffled way of striking the string expresses the dry season, which is hot and muggy; the way of pressing with the fingers is like the exhaustion of a peasant working hard to make the rice grains, or the thirsty lament of the rice field when the wind changes its direction. The sinuous music line is like the unstable lives of the peasants. Overall, I am expressing the painstaking, strenuous, tattered life of the peasants who make the rice.
Ngoc: Have you had any difficulties in producing this exhibition?
Cuong: I have met with many galleries for more than one year but none of them wanted to display it. Finally, I met with Thang Long Gallery two months ago and they agreed to lend us their space for 10 days.
Ngoc: Can you describe the way you arranged things in this exhibition so that it can be in harmony with the four different art forms?
Cuong: I have experimented by jumbling up the art works, sometimes tightly packed together on the walls, sometimes laying on the floor photos, paintings and sculptures all mixed together. This is how I hope to achieve harmony with all these different works in one exhibition; it is also how I best responded to the space.
Ngoc: You’re an artist but also a sculptor, a writer, a stage director and a curator. Can you tell me how you have organized your work to pursue so many career paths?
Cuong: I absolutely don’t organize my jobs. Though I really want to be an organized person, to have an organizational mind, but as you know, all I have done is make my art. As an artist I am focused on creativity and really cannot plan my life in an ordered fashion.
Ngoc: I wish the exhibition every success.
