Visited “Nát giỏ còn bờ tre” exhibition by artist Trung Nghĩa. I love the way he recalled and revitalized the forgotten values. His artworks (via Bamboo and Rattan) reflected many meaningful layers of Vietnamese culture and daily life. I was inspired and motivated when learning about his journey of building this project from ideas to final artworks.
So, what is “Nát giỏ còn bờ tre”?
The name of this exhibition was borrowed from Vietnamese folk poetry. It means – when the bamboo baskets are worn out, remember we still have the bamboo banks. My way of understanding this folk poetry is – when our glorious and flashy things disappeared, we still have our roots stand strong.
From childhood memories
Trung Nghĩa brought to the exhibition the memories from his fatherland – Quang Nam (a province in central Vietnam). It’s a place surrounded by bamboo bushes, and the residents use bamboo as the main material for woven floors, ceiling panels as well as everyday household appliances. Those idyllic pictures of village life reflected on each artwork that he put in the showroom – a random rock falling from a cliff, a small creek flowing downhill, a broken boat full of flowers, a big snail on a meadow, a flower branch,…
To me, the “meaningful thing” Trung Nghĩa brought to the showroom was the gentlemen who used-to-be-bamboo-craftsmen; who worked with him on this project; who hold a vault of knowledge about jungle, bamboo, rattan, and natural materials in his village. Those gentlemen are all retired. Due to the development of the country their career was faded away, and soon forgotten because the next generation no longer wants to continue this career path.
Photos from “Nát giỏ còn bờ tre” exhibition, Nov 2020
To real life project
I was born and grew up in a city where I only see bamboo bushes in books, movies, and photographs. It was hard for me to connect to the childhood memories the artist wanted to share. Hence, I think Trung Nghĩa did very great work by revitalizing those forgotten values. He turns them into elements that can be utilized as design pieces for interior decoration.
To me, this project is awesome, it’s all about finding traditional values, reinventing them, give them reasons to be a part of modern life.
danchi, the designer