Where the dominant urban archive pushes pluralist cultural and linguistic heritages to the margins, pressure builds to adapt to structures and spaces shaped by an apparently singular, central culture and language. A process of unlearning opens a gap between one generation and the next. In Yet, painted flowers do smell, Phạm Minh Đức documents a personal approach towards the Vietnamese culture through language. A series of drawings records repeated gestures, as diacritics are written over and over again. No letters are formed, just strokes – a scaffolding, or a map. These compact, nuanced gestures bear witness to and are a result of addressing the experiences and traumas of migration passed on between generations. By recording the process of incorporating the diacritics into the artists’ handwriting and therefore identity, Phạm Minh Đức seeks answers to questions relating to belonging, and charts out a space for self-determined change and healing.
Droste Lab, 2022
Museumswerkstatt Haus #2
Rüschhaus, Münster, Germany
gegen\archive: wer bleibt wo, 2021
Prater Galerie + ACUD Berlin, Germany
Fotos: Joanna Kosowska
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