Keep My Heart
“We are living in a parallel world of development and fluctuations in all fields. All these invisible waves can easily drown out our own emotions and make us forget the elements that have sculpted us into the present. All of us, and especially the younger generation, are at risk of easily falling into confusion between social morality and personal emotions, sinking into internal conflicts in addition to conflicts taking place everywhere in the world. This project aims to find the inner voices of young people and keep their memories warm or light up their beautiful wishes on the journey of living with the beauty of darkness and light intertwined. 27 young people from many fields around me answered a series of questions aimed at assessing their subconscious and conscious worlds. From their special answers, I have integrated them into photo concepts.
We can easily find fantasy worlds using AI tools, but the fantasy worlds in this project are built from the minds and real activities of the characters; they contain the energy of Surname. Each character has different movements; some move like stone, and some move like wood, water, wind, etc. During the process of making this photo series, they also reveal unconscious movements. alternating conscious actions. This is strongly linked to “life” as we integrate our mind and body and experience into realities other than external life: “Imagine you are making a chair out of grapefruit peels, Imagine Imagine you are hugged tightly by a tree and ants bite you, how long has it been since you had these feelings?
Along with the feeling of “life”, the cultural expressions of Vietnam flow in the blood of these characters. They are the young generation in Vietnam, living amid the spiritual and cultural diversity of many cultural streams from across the country. “
Keep My Heart by Chiron Duong
(Character Phương Anh)
(Character Tu Bong)
(Character Goli Tran)
(Character Viet Nu)
Short Story to start “Keep My Heart” project idea
HCM City, July 5, 2023: Project start date.
At The Coffee House (1), I was wearing a red T-shirt that my boyfriend said was similar to those mothers buy for their children, a sign of immaturity. Surrounding me were white walls, ceiling lights with black hoods, and 15 other people dressed in white, black, gray, and all kinds of gadgets. This color contrast makes me feel lost. I remembered the day before in this same cafe when I was captivated by the appearance of a woman, about 35, sitting two tables away from me. On her slender fingers, there was a golden ring shaped like an apricot flower. She wore a thin pink shirt over a Kate shirt with tiny, colorful floral prints. Next to her was a lunch box in a red cloth bag. I saw no technological devices around. She stroked her sideburns while looking at the cheap cake on the table. All these somewhat “yokel-ish” details suddenly came alive and mysteriously attracted me as if she were the only living entity there.
Now, back to the present, the sky was gloomy. Some people had indifferent faces, some didn’t show any hint of emotion, and the rest were staring at the characters on their computer screens. All of a sudden, I remembered the feeling of accidentally touching metal pieces placed in an air-conditioned room. I tried to look for signs that the people around me were still alive or that I had been lost in another reality. Was it also possible that they did live, but only at a different time than now? Were they like me? We have been wearing a heart-shaped necklace – the “yokel-ish” necklace floating in the air and looking for a moment to enter the real heart. Sometimes, this moment will be the same for each person. Sometimes, it won’t be.
(1) Name of the cafe
Vũng Tàu, March 10, 2024: Project completion date.
The ocean water flowed through my toes, and the sunset embraced my exposed parts. Something about life filled me. I stomped through the water to keep my balance. My near-sighted eyes could only see the faint silhouettes of boats in the distance. My swimming companion challenged me to do the yoga pose in which I held my feet close to my face while my life jacket kept me floating on the ocean surface. We laughed so hard our laughter was as crispy as a perfect golden sun cake. I couldn’t do this the first time. My body rotated like a rolling wheel. By the 10th attempt, I can hold that position for 5 seconds. At this time, the sky was separated into orange, red, dark blue, and black. It reminded me of a Mark Rothko painting. We swam diagonally to shore, which took about 15 minutes from our floating position. It was the easiest to swim on your back, so the small waves couldn’t hit your face. As I was treading water, moving away from the color patches and boat silhouettes, it felt strange, as if I was leaving another me behind.
When my feet touched the sandy shore, colorful electric lights lit up. Now that the wind was getting stronger and the black sea was gradually leaving us, the salty taste still lingered in our mouths, and a little sand stuck with us like an irresistible gift from a distant relative whom we had not met for a long time.
Now came the part we were most looking forward to: sitting down on the sand, we reached out our hands to receive and slurped up a hot bowl of crab paste vermicelli noodles from a 30-year-old vermicelli basket yoke of a 45-year-old woman. In hunger, my friend took some more raw vegetables, squeezed a slice of lemon, and let out a few complaints because the lady ran out of stewed bones early today. I tripped over a bowl of vermicelli sitting on the sand. The warm, smooth broth in the bowl flowed over my feet, and a few strands of vermicelli tied my toes.
After eating, we wrapped a towel around our bodies and got in the car to go home because people here don’t care what we wear on the street.
(2) Vũng Tàu – a coastal city in southern Vietnam.
(Character Diamond Tran)
(Character Kieu Anh)
(Character Tina Amia)
(Character Gumn Nghi)
This project seeks to understand the contrast between the subconscious and unconscious worlds of young people living and working in Vietnam between the ages of 20 – 30, with their external and conscious expressions in their choices of clothes. Each character in this project comes from a different field and has different experiences. They will prepare two costumes for themselves for two occasions:
- For casual occasions like meeting close friends, morning coffee, etc.
- For small formal events like meetings, art events, cocktail parties, concerts, etc.
Through a special questionnaire I compiled, each person can share about their subconscious, unconscious, and conscious prototypes. The question system deliberately aims to create an intertwining of timelines, taking advantage of the intersection between traditional Vietnamese culture and contemporary culture, as well as my somewhat unconscious questions about things I myself am questioning. The characters will choose at least five questions that catch their interest. From there, I will form concepts by specifying the images and incorporating the answers to reveal the inner world of what they care about in contemporary life, in tandem with traditional, cultural Vietnamese values that have been with them since birth. I can say that this project is a personal experiment of mine to create an intersection between the unconscious, subconscious, and conscious worlds of the characters, and my own unconscious, subconscious, and conscious worlds via a theme of contemporary fashion among Vietnamese youth.
1. If you could put an object on your head, what would you choose? (For example, a pumpkin, a fish, etc.) Please share more about your choice.
2. If you could play a traditional game, what game would you play? (For example, jumping rope, etc.) Please share more about your choice.
3. If you could carry something, an object, not your backpack, what would you choose? (For example: a frog, etc.) Please share more about your choice.
4. If you could make one movement, what movement would you make to express “livingness”? (For example, a jump)
5. What is one thing you want to pass on to the next generation of your homeland? (For example, how to cook sour soup or draw a kite)
6. A sound of reality that you want to hear? (Not the sound of music in your headphones)
7. An unreal animal that comes to your mind? Please share more about your choice.
8. Do you want to hit someone or an object? Please share more about your choice.
9. A Vietnamese fairy tale legend or fantasy?
10. If you had an invisible wound, what would you want to put on it? (For example, a seashell, a Mickey Mouse)
11. Describe a mask you would like to wear.
12. An object that you want to hold when you don’t want to touch your cell phone? (For example, a brick, a stone, a hammer, etc.)
13. Imagine you are traveling back in time and encountering an animal, and it eats you. Describe and share about that species (For example, a bird without wings but with big ears, a tree with eyes, etc.)
14. A painting that you want to crumple, tear, or burn?
15. If you were a UFO member, what would you scatter down to cover the earth with?
16. What do you want to put on your shoes?
17. How many eyes, noses, mouths, and ears do you have on your head?
18. Describe a chair that isn’t real.
19. If you had a net, what would you catch?
20. A Vietnamese folk art that you want to learn?
21. A folk song, proverb, poem, or folk song?
(Character Xuan Dung)
(Character Mai Dao)
(Character Tracy Nguyen)
(Character Tu Uyen)
(Character Hai Man)
(Character Tran Khanh)
(Character Son Ngoc Hieu)
(Character Hoang Sym)
(Character Tran Chau)
(Character Gia Han)
(Character Heidi Nguyen)
(Character Tuyet Nhung)
(Character Minh Thong)
(Character Ngan Bui)
(Character Nu Nguyen)
(Character Hoang My)
(Character Tuong Vy)
(Character Duong Vo)
(See more of our cultural programs here)
