» Checkpoint 1

Array of Void at 13 x 18, Checkpoint 1 and Checkpoint 3 form part of Ha Ninh Pham’s solo exhibition Recursive Fables. In various fields such as mathematics, programming and system building, recursion could be understood as when a system refers to itself. This recursive nature has always been a prominent feature of My Land, a fictional world that takes self-referentiality as one of its core values: “This territory does not correspond to any known culture in human history. It has its own systems of logic, language, and metrology that are functional only within themselves” (from Ha Ninh’s artist’s statement for My Land). Ha Ninh Pham’s solo exhibition, Recursive Fables, sheds light on the invention of a new language called Loop Script that Ha Ninh has been working on since early 2022. Loop Script is a language that was born out of My Land and is capable of self-documenting its own history. Through an array of works spanning drawings, sculptures, and video games, Ha Ninh also ponders the constructedness of language and its capacity to reveal differing realities. “Loop Script is written mostly by applying graphite powder to paper, erasing the shapes and shading them. There are three basic elements. Subject 0 is the voice of the void; it is put on paper using the blackest ink I have. Subject 1 is the voice of the speculator, drawn by re-shading the erased parts on the paper. Subject 2 is the voice of the believer. It looks similar to Subject 1, but has a cast shadow, indicating that it touches the ‘ground’ and never ‘moves’”, states the artist.