» Dreamers series

Sourcing photographic documentations of significant political meetings and protests that influenced the course of history from mass media and archives, then appropriating, dissecting and reassembling them into something new and uncanny, Quy Tong’s work makes it difficult to decipher between the make-believe, the manipulated and the genuine. Transcending time, while also dissolving borders in a global study of political discord, his images appear faded, emphasizing our removal from the original experience. Detached from their separate narratives, Quy Tong re-contextualizes the photographs in a unified presentation that probes deeper into disparate movements for freedom across the histories of Vietnam and the world. 

During the 2019–2023 period, the artist was particularly haunted by images of the Vietnam War – many of which only came into wider circulation decades later. The emotions stirred by encountering these materials became the drive for him to further interrogate memory and the human condition. One particularly evocative image is that of post-war demining soldiers – those who continue to face death in silence. From there, he begins to ask: when two opposing sides stand on the fragile threshold between life and death, how can love be defined? And we, as viewers, are we ever truly able to share in or even grasp these vibrations? 

(Edited from text excerpts provided by the artist)