Site-specific mixed-media installation (documentary video, handwriting on walls). Dimensions variable.

Description

In the early 2000s, Vietnam’s economy and culture boomed, markedly widening the disparity in the standard of living between urban centers and remote areas in the countryside and in the highlands. Then began a wave of labor migration from poorer rural regions to urban areas. To make ends meet, the majority of migrant workers took up odd jobs on the streets such as good carrier, hawker, shoeshiner, prostitute etc. At the time, Hanoi strived to live by the motto A city of peace, greens, cleanliness, beauty, civility, inadvertently casting laborers as a problem that urban managers had to purge.

Nguyễn Minh Phước's initial idea was to make a documentary about the lives of migrant workers. The artist first met up and talked to them through days and nights. He realized that they too have beautiful yet simple dreams; in the sole pursuit of a better life for their family, they plunged into the hustle and bustle of city life plagued with discrimination, temptation, and circumstances that would lead them astray. Sleepwalking is conceived to be an exhibition space where migrant workers could express their thoughts and humble dreams and hold direct conversations with the audience, the majority of whom being inhabitants of the nation's capital. Through this work, the artist hopes to partly close the distance between urban dwellers and migrants.

Description by ViAA based on materials provided by the artist.