Workshop «Ngẫm Tượng» (How to Touch the Elephant, On Sofa / Ghế Dài #10)

   Soil keeps what people would rather forget. In Hanoi, artist Hiền Hoàng invites exactly ten people to spend three hours drawing with earth inside a sound environment built from data gathered in landscapes that still carry dioxin. This is neither a talk nor an exhibition, but a shared practice: reading, drawing and conversation in the library of Heritage Art Space.

   The programme runs in three parts, with short breaks of two to five minutes between them. The essentials:

• — a reading performance introducing the research project «Ngẫm Tượng», roughly 15–20 minutes;
• — a soil-drawing and deep-listening workshop: one large shared roll of paper, with separate sheets for anyone who prefers to work alone;
• — a discussion about what you heard and drew, and about the research process itself;
• — a sound environment made from data collected at Rừng Sác, Biên Hòa and Quảng Trị;
• — ten places in total.

   Hiền Hoàng, born in 1991, works where art, ecology and material research meet: corroded metals, fungi, soil, archival photographs and sensor-based systems. Her practice examines how matter records violence, care and memory. Her work has been shown at Foam Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam, Les Rencontres d'Arles and Photo London, and in 2024 she received the Paul Huf Award, which led to her first solo exhibition at Foam. Recent projects include Garden of Entanglement (2024), which turns vibrational data from urban trees into sound and sculptural form, and Scent from Heaven (2023), which follows agarwood trees through CT imaging and EEG. She currently works between London, Hanoi and Frankfurt am Main.

   The organisers address artists, art practitioners and people working in the cultural and social sectors who think about the long-term consequences of war. You do not need to draw well: if you can pull a line across paper, that is enough, and the rest is listening.

   The event is non-profit. Participants are encouraged to support the artist with a contribution from 150,000 VND, and everything collected goes to her directly after the session. With only ten places, registration is required, and the doors close at the scheduled start time even for those who signed up. The session is also photographed and audio-recorded for archival, research and communication purposes.

   The working language has not been announced: the poster came out in Vietnamese and the programme notes in English, so it is worth asking the organisers when you register. The drawing and listening in the middle of the programme need no words at all.

   HAS Library, the reading room of Heritage Art Space, sits in unit T2.4 on the second floor of the Complex 01 block in the lanes off Tây Sơn, so allow time to find the right staircase. Three hours, ten people and earth that remembers everything — a rare format even for Hanoi, and one worth deciding on early.