Phan Thao Nguyen

unning streams and verdant fields form the backdrops of multiple works by Phan Thao Nguyen. Though at first the lush landscapes appear enchanting, they conceal dark histories of unspoken atrocities that unravel through Phan’s masterful (2019–) tells the story of a girl named Tam (August), who becomes a hungry ghost after her brother, Ba (March), accidentally wounds her while they are cutting sugar cane. Set in the Red River Delta in northern Vietnam, where two million people died during the 1944–45 famine caused by the Japanese Imperial Army’s occupation of French Indochina and the negligence of the Vichy colonial administration, Phan’s elegiac narrative points to how aspirations for power led to the leeching of the land and the horrific deaths of those who lived on it. Originally premiered at Sharjah Biennial 14 (3/7–6/10), was reprised at the Rockbund Art Museum in Shanghai, where Phan was a nominee for the Hugo Boss Asia Art Award. There she also displayed her ethereal watercolors on silk from the series, and suspended a ghostly forest of dried jute stalks from the ceiling, (both 2019).