Note: Many projects included in this portfolio are immaterial and/or research-based. Therefore, the project statements are not just extra components in the portfolio. They are integral in providing context for the works.
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Title: Hyacinth
Collaboration with Cayla Holling
Medium: Flythrough images captured from 3D model of a floating city using Sketchup, Adobe 2D graphics.
Date: Fall 2019
Project statement: In the next 50 to 100 years, many costal areas of countries such as Vietnam, Bangladesh and China will be flooded during high tides, which might prompt citizens living in these areas to migrate to inland metropolises. To relieve this mass migration movement, Bao and Cayla designs Hyacinth, a 3D model of a floating city that mimics the structure of the common water hyacinth plant that thrives entirely on water's surface. The floating city includes 3-story self-sustainable, fully submergeable house boats, a hospital, a k-12 school and a worshipping center (top image, left to right).
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Title: A score for bonding
Medium: Large-scale interactive floor installation created based on notional diagram created in Illustrator. Electrical tape, vinyl lettering.192x192 inches.
Date: Fall 2019
Project statement: Innovating on the sacred and intricate composition, color and content of a traditional mandala that represents the holy dwelling place of deities in Tibetan Buddhism, the large-scale visual score installation invites the audience to follow the paths, read the poetic printed movement prompts and perform movements that suggest self-reflection and connection with one another.
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Title: nước-mắm (fish-sauce)
Medium: performance stills extracted from documentation video.
Date: Fall 2019
Project statement: nước-mắm (fish-sauce) is an experimental talk in which the artist (Vietnamese themselves) shares about the cultural significance of fish sauce in Vietnamese cuisine while co-creating a dipping sauce from fish sauce with the audience. Connecting the process of the fish's year-long fermentation that produces the fish sauce and the process of self-transformation, the artist and the audience discuss about what aspect of themself they want to see transformed while tasting the dipping sauce with rice paper.
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Title: Have you ever attempted to measure and compare the distance between you and your mom, you and the self you present on social media and you and your data (in)security?
Medium: digital collage, Adobe 2D graphics.
Source image: artist’s childhood photograph, text thread with their mom, the artist’s primary U.S location (on the right) and their mom’s primary Vietnam location (on the left) (top collage). Images collected from the internet, Instagram icon (middle collage). News headlines about tech corporations’ scandals of mass surveillance, arial shots of Google and Facebook’s data centers (bottom collage).
Date: Fall 2019
Project statement: Have you ever attempted... is a series of hinted thought images about the personal and collective experience of using digital technology, considering long-distance mother-son relationship (mediated by digital communication), the staging nature of taking photos for social media and fear of data (in)security.
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Title: Actions for withstanding/undercutting dominant power at South China Sea
Medium: Documentary. Video, HD, 1'30'', color, stereo sound.
Project statement: This short documentary offers a glimpse into the 2-part performance Actions for withstanding/undercutting dominant power at South China Sea.
In this 2-part performance series, the artist attempts to imagine themselves as the disputed Spratly and Paracel archipelagos in the geopolitically-charged South China Sea. Responding to historical/current events outlining China's exertion of military/political power toward Vietnam and this sea region, the artist performs exhaustive crawling and pulsive, tense movement to embody dominant power's affect on smaller country’s body (including Vietnam). To offer healing to these disputed islands, the artist sings Vietnamese lullaby while asking audience member to hum along. Besides, they lick their Vietnamese body (instead of being lick by China's 9-dash demarcation line) while inviting audience members to lick themselves. Lastly, they ask the audience to respond to the question "How do you solve dispute?"
The documentary combines mixture of footages and audio recordings documenting the performances, video projections and soundtracks used during the performances.
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