‘Becoming Alluvium’:Thao Nguyen Phan in conversation with Barbara London

Thao Nguyen Phan’s works draw from the rich and turbulent history of her native country, Vietnam. Taking different forms, her projects explore the agricultural, political and social context of the Vietnamese countryside by incorporating an interest for literature and language. As she explains, her practice entails a certain “ecological responsibility”, understood as her own way to think about agriculture and the issue of food security. In 2018, Thao Nguyen Phan was the winning artist of the first edition of the “Han Nefkens – LOOP Barcelona Video Art Award” organized in collaboration with the Fundació Joan Miró. With the title Becoming Alluvium (2019), the elegiac video resulting from the award surveys the construction of hydroelectric dams, the spread of unsustainable agriculture, the problem of overfishing, the unavoidable economic migration of farmers to big cities, and how these issues are manifested via popular culture and the eyes of adolescents. Curator and writer Barbara London was among the expert jury that conferred the prize for “her heterogeneous, powerful works and their alluring narrative forms.”