Talk | Video Art: A Door Onto Public Space

   Billboards and advertising screens have taken over almost the whole field of vision of the city — can art squeeze in? The person who has spent four years testing that question tells the story on the second floor of a Ba Đình department store, a venue that is itself part of the experiment.

   Video art was born exactly when urbanisation and technology took off: across the two decades it took to move from analogue to digital, the specialist gear and heavy costs of cinema turned into a medium that was cheap and easy to reach. In Vietnam, though, getting close to new art forms is still blocked by the absence of formal teaching in contemporary art and experimental film — FETA, launched by APD, exists to fill that gap.

   FETA after four seasons
— Started in 2022 with two large LCD screens, one in Hanoi and one in Ho Chi Minh City
— Now connects 14 screening locations across both cities
— 18 works currently meet the criteria for screening in public space
— Screening abroad since late 2025
— A non-profit project run on a co-design, co-construction principle

   The speaker is Tran Luong (Trần Lương), one of the first artists in Vietnam to experiment with performance and video, and a member of the “Gang of Five” (1983–1997). In 1998 he co-founded Nhà Sàn Studio, the country's first artist-run experimental art space, curating there through its first four years; in 2000 he founded and led the Hanoi Center for Contemporary Fine Arts; in 2020 he co-founded APD, which he now directs. His curatorial work includes “Xanh, Đỏ & Vàng” (2003), the Lim Dim international performance art festival (2004), “Nặng Bồng Nhẹ Tếch” (2010) and “Miền Méo Miệng” (2015). He received the Prince Claus Award from the Dutch royal fund in 2014 and an Andy Warhol Foundation grant in 1999.

   For artists, art students and anyone curious about why a video work turns up next to a shopping aisle. What you get is the backstage account of a move that took art out of the gallery and into the everyday flow — and of the prospects that opened once it did.

   The talk is held in Vietnamese. Registration in advance is required through the organisers' form.

   If art wants out of the white cube, it has to learn the language of the street. How far along would you say it has got?