Visual artist Yang Yang: soldier ant in the museum of memory

Can you describe the steps involved in your archival approach—archiving, sterilising, framing, and displaying?

I believe any object, once it exists, becomes part of an archive, a kind of evidence of that very act. For me, archiving starts with the moment I realise I want to preserve something. From that point, I observe it more closely, study it, and document it. On a deeper level, I see this as our way of confronting the fear of time itself.

Everything around us is subject to decay. It’s this inevitability that compels people to preserve. From carefully packing away keepsakes to cryogenic preservation, it’s all an effort to extend a thing’s time in the world. In doing so, we maintain a link to the past, anchor the present, and plant the seeds of the future.

There are things I, too, wish to preserve. In doing so, I intervene, adjusting the structure of an object in such a way that someone in the future might believe it once existed like that in history. This idea is clearest in Mam (2024), a piece where I crafted an “artefact” from a vanished civilisation that exists only in my imagination.

As for sterilisation—preservation demands processing. Insect remains, for instance, must undergo biochemical treatment before they’re ready for display. I find myself replicating this kind of “technology” in my work. At the outset, my ideas are chaotic. Through curation—choosing, arranging—I begin a kind of mental biochemical process. Instead of chemicals, I use thought and discipline, filtering and refining until something cohesive emerges. I think and rethink, day after day; ideas evolve, diverge, and are distilled. Eventually, they reduce into a final, concentrated form. That’s what I call sterilisation or purification of the work.

Read more: Artist Pham Minh Hieu: Thinking alone, freedom to feel alone

After sterilisation comes the framing stage. I often joke that simply placing something in a frame or giving it a name tag can make it pass as visual art. Many have made wry remarks about this notion, but I prefer to find my own way of making light of it. Curiously, during the creative process, the idea of the frame often appears before the actual content. I enjoy contemplating how to frame each piece, how it might be different this time. The frame, to me, isn’t just a finishing touch; it’s an essential element, underscoring the very act of archiving. There are times when the concepts I want to capture, like memories or intangible ideas, lack form. I have to find a way to render them as something physical, something enclosed.

Take, for example, a box to ‘lock’ the object in place. The insects would understand that best. Or I might stretch silk, reminiscent of animal skin, and paint a human head across it like a trophy from a hunt. Sometimes I frame it in the style of supermarket food packaging.

Tell us a little about your views on this behaviour.

Back when I studied physics, I was introduced to the concept of linear time, that it moves in a single direction, from past to present to future, and the human body cannot bend or outrun it. All things deteriorate. Hot water cools. Food spoils. People... do not return.

We live by that rhythm, whether we like it or not. Storage becomes a necessity. If we don’t preserve, we are left behind. And even then, we are still, in the end, overtaken.

I feel it too. We’re all subject to that flow, but drifting with it without resistance... it’s a little dull, isn’t it?

Whenever I begin a new work, I return to this idea of archiving. In some ways, it feels like a quiet act of defiance. Through the objects and images I create, I am, in my own way, trying to push back against time. I can’t hold on to everything, but at the very least, I can make something stand still, on canvas, in a frame. Perhaps, years from now, someone will see a trace of that fleeting moment I once lived. A small gesture, yes—but a resolute one, in the face of inevitable decay. And for me, that’s enough.

So does the practice of archiving help you feel the flow of time more clearly?

Through archiving, I’ve realised that time moves far more swiftly than I imagined. So quickly, in fact, that what I manage to preserve is only ever a fragment. As a child, when I lived with my grandparents, I began to notice how each person had their own way of holding on to the past. My grandfather, for instance, kept newspaper clippings from the battles at Dien Bien Phu, which he had taken part in. He even preserved an aluminium mug, said to be the one Uncle Ho used to brush his teeth when visiting the military zone. Then there were the house pillars, the gate, the cast-iron pot, all inscribed with the year of their birth.

Surrounded by such things, I slowly came to see that time doesn’t just pass, it imprints itself deeply. It marks the objects we live with, the people we remember, and the mind that tries to hold onto them.

So what are your criteria for choosing what you archive?

At first, it was simply about what I liked. Though that “liking” never appeared out of nowhere. It came from experience, from influence, from the world around me. In a way, it’s the result of everyone’s input (laughs).

Truly, I follow what catches my interest, whatever draws my gaze, day by day. At this point in my life, the things I come across, whether by chance or intention, inevitably find their way into my work. They might not always be profound, nor do they aim to speak for a whole generation. But they are entirely sincere, and unmistakably mine.

It sounds like environmental determinism works. Speaking of environments, is there an environment that motivates you to write?

Actually, it’s not so much the “environment” as it is the “circumstances”.

There was a time that influenced me deeply. After a car accident, when I had to stay at home for three months. I couldn’t move; my legs were stiff and useless. Suddenly, I found myself in a situation where the only thing I could do was draw. There happened to be a sketchbook for lacquer art nearby, and I spent the days sketching non-stop. I never tired of it. My focus became intense. It was an experience I doubt I’ll ever have again, and truthfully, one I wouldn’t want to repeat.

But in that period, I had no choice but to create independently, away from the boundaries I’d always imposed on myself. It was then I realised that making visual art, first and foremost, is something I do for myself, not to fit within any existing frame of reference.

So what about the environment, does it have any impact?

The environment plays its role, in different ways, at different times. For instance, I often work with insects. In the city, they’re around, but not as plentiful, nor as visible, as they were back in my hometown. I grew up surrounded by insects, playing with them, watching them closely. There’s one image that stays with me: around 6 p.m., at the village crossroads, dragonflies would circle in the air, filling the sky. We’d finish dinner and run outside to join them. That memory is etched into me.

So this interest in insects has been with me for a long time, though I only came to recognise it properly as an adult, once it began appearing in my visual art. Each work, in a way, is a way of “repaying” a memory. That said, I work slowly. Even when I have an idea, I don’t always act on it immediately. Sometimes, it takes years before it finds its final form.

Article published from the original article in Tatler Vietnam January 2025 issue

NOW READ

Calligrapher Dao Huy Hoang and his enduring writing journey

Dancer Vu Ngoc Khai: The Shape of Movement

Home tour: The Marq apartment celebrates convenience and ‘quiet luxury’ in modern Saigon