Quynh Dong, Nhà Sàn Collective, Poem Garden, 2022. Installation view, WH22, Kassel, June 15 2022. Photo by Nils Klinger.
"Founded as Nhà Sàn Studio in 1998—the first alternative art space in Vietnam—Nhà Sàn reformed as an artist collective to support and nurture contemporary art in Hanoi. At Werner-Hilpert-Strasse 22 (WH22), the collective’s leafy installation confronts viewers in an otherwise postindustrial and postcommercial setting: the back of a former nineteenth-century wine shop that was until recently an empty lot. Nhà Sàn’s project consists of repurposing vacant urban space with a labyrinth of raised planting beds filled with willowy and untamed plants initiated by collective member Tuấn Mami, a woodshed with a porch displaying the garden’s yield alongside works by the Nhà Sàn-invited collective Phụ Lục (The Appendx Group), and a smaller improvised shed-cum-screening room with a video by Quynh Dong."
