Stone Memorial with Việt Pronouns Interactive: Engraved Stones
Entry/Object ID
TOR.36
Description
Engraved stones for interactive. Paired with white cloth and gong and mallet.
Needs sign to accompany work: "Place a stone on the white mourning cloth in memory of someone or something." Needs info on pronouns.
If space does not lend itself to interactive element, display under a vitrine like the original photo.
Collection
Missing Piece Project
Made/Created
Artist
Kim Nguyen Tran
Date made
Apr 30, 2019
Interpretative Labels
Label Type
Artist Commentary
Label
Courtesy of Kim Nguyen Tran
PAIR WITH PHOTO OF INITIAL INSTALLATION?
This piece consists of Việt pronouns/familial terms written on stones (con/em/chị/anh/cô/chú/bác, etc.), as a way to reflect on how Viet culture understands the terms “you” and “I” to be more complex than in the English language. Using these terms, there are no individual names on the stones, only general/anonymous pronouns – but at the same time, these pronouns/familial terms are intimate and endearing. Included are some recently coined gender non-binary pronouns such as chanh (chị + anh) that the queer Việt community uses. We asked visitors passing by to place a stone on the white cloth in memory of someone/something, as a collective makeshift memorial (similar to Jewish tradition of placing stones on a grave). The familial terms on the stones were meant to insist upon the humanity of Vietnamese people, to counteract the dehumanization of Vietnamese bodies that has occurred in the ways that America has remembered (and forgotten) the war.
