FOREST DUST (FORM, FAITH, FEAR ...)
In project “The Sap Still Runs”, 2019 - ongoing
Mixed media installation:
Rubber tree roots, wooden beads, funeral garlands, soil, fertilizer plastic bag...
Dimension variable according to temperature, space and time
Possibilities of understanding in Truong Cong Tung’s works could be generated by the tenderly grotesque, like the proposal of a crossbred religious icon/ organism, or the earnestly pious, as seen in the way he treats the trees truncated and burned en masse in his home village in Gia Lai Province. As landowners in the Central Highlands seasonally demolish hectares after hectares of profit-losing rubber trees, Truong Cong Tung salvages their seared roots as an act of witnessing and documenting these violated carpets of trees. In an installation at the artist’s home in Chu Se Prefecture of Gia Lai, the black roots, despite having been severely burned, still exude their breathtaking beauty and vigor. In another configuration, Truong Cong Tung methodically festoons an upturned root with the subtle golden shimmer of funereal garlands, turning a discarded tree limb into a dignified syncretic shrine for exploited forests and exhausted plantations. A sprawling mound of wooden beads on the floor undulates around this arabesque structure, intensifying its mystical feeling. Profit driven humans tend to regard or disregard trees in terms of their utility, whereas Truong Cong Tung’s act of refashioning felled trees might suggest it’s time for us to kneel and pray before the grandeur of their remains.
excerpt from curatorial text by Nguyen Hoang Quyen
