Precious. Rare. For Sale.
Synopsis
Precious. Rare. For Sale. takes a broad sweep at the presentation of nature in Vietnamese moving images from the 1990s. From being an abode for majestic and magical beasts to serving as a backdrop for war heroics and social realist tragedies, representations of nature have been shaped by Vietnam’s changing sociopolitical contexts. Reflecting on how filmmakers have portrayed the environment, Bùi questions the ethics of exploiting nature for the camera. While early ethnographic films shot by the French depicted the Vietnamese jungle as an untouched, primitive landscape; today’s images of razed forests and neatly-partitioned land plots reveal how nature has become a commodity for a rising middle class. Captured on screen by property developers and thrill-seeking vloggers alike, nature’s images shapeshift constantly, feeding into a loop of an endless mediated consumption.
Schedule
1st Screening
6 December 2023, 15:30 GMT+7
Production Team
Lêna Bùi
Lêna Bùi lives in Saigon, Vietnam. Her works are sometimes drawn from anecdotes; and at other times in-depth articulations of human relationships to nature and the impact of rapid development on people’s lives. Using mainly painting and video, she reflects on the ways in which tradition, faith, death and dreams influence our behavior and perception. Her work has been shown at solo and group exhibitions such as the 2022 Jeju Biennale, the Asia Culture Center, South Korea; Sharjah Art Foundation, UAE; Wesleyan University, USA; Skyline with flying people 3, Vietnam; Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Germany; The Factory Contemporary Art Center, Vietnam; Carré d’Art-Musée d’Art Contemporain, France; and the Wellcome Collection, London.
