Thoughts from Ho Chi Minh City
By Maria Sowter

'My Own Words' is a monthly series which features personal essays by practitioners in the Southeast Asian art community. They deliberate on their locality's present circumstances, articulating observations and challenges in their respective roles.

So it goes that our personal crisis has manifested in tandem with the outbreak of COVID-19. In February 2020, we received the unfortunate news that our international art residency here in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) would need to vacate its current premises by the end of the year. An arts organisation losing its space, especially here in Vietnam where urban development is so rapid is a familiar story. A. Farm was founded in 2018 to host funded regional artists alongside self-funded international and local artists for periods of up to six months. Of its three founding members, the Nguyen Art Foundation loaned the converted factory that became the A. Farm space, and provided financial support for three residency slots per season.¹ The running of the residency is co-managed by fellow founding art organisations San Art and MoT+++.² For nearly two years, A. Farm has hosted an eclectic group of artists working in a number of mediums and at various stages of their careers. Now, the future existence of A. Farm faces two concurrent threats: the global pandemic and shutdown of travel has inhibited artists’ ability to join (and leave) the residency, a problem for many similar residencies around the world; and our loss of space is symptomatic of the ongoing struggle for organisations on the peripheries of the art world to survive.

z1 studio at A. Farm, Season 1, 2019. Image courtesy of Maria Sowter.

A. Farm was established from both a long-running conversation between its founders on how to better support the Vietnamese art world, and the serendipitous opportunity of being loaned a space. It sought to fill a perceived lack of places for artists to work on large-scale productions, an incubating space where the international art world could come and cross-pollinate with our own Saigonese one, and a channel through which artists from Vietnam could receive funding and curatorial support. In only a few months, the A. Farm residency was realised and launched with an Open Call and the group show ‘All Animals Are Equal’. The artist-curated endeavour was open to any and all artists in Saigon to hang their works. Over 100 local visual, video, sound and performance artists joined the event, marking an auspicious start to the project. Since then, the residency has hosted more than 50 artists from 20 countries across the world, as well as established institutional partnerships, such as the French Institute in Vietnam and Bamboo Curtain Studio residency in Taiwan. These have helped to expand the residency’s network and recruit artists joining the programme. A. Farm’s mission was, and remains, to create a self-sustaining international art residency that sparks life in Saigon’s art world, adding another dimension to its budding arts ecosystem. Its business model uses income from self-funded residents and institutional partnerships to maintain operations, whilst providing paid residencies with the financial aid of the Nguyen Art Foundation. Two years into operations, this business model was beginning to prove successful: fewer costs were needed from the foundation, and a growing number of partners was helping to stabilise A. Farm’s income. During this time, the farm has become a must-see stop in the calendar of visiting artists, curators and other art professionals. In particular, the residency has been popular with artists from the Vietnamese diaspora looking for ways to connect with the Vietnam art world. As artists have joined from all over the world, sharing their experiences, there has been a sense of connection to this wider intangible network that now feels in jeopardy.

Then came February 2020 and the news that the foundation would no longer be able to loan the space. At the same time, a growing awareness of the escalating COVID-19 crisis was already beginning to affect plans for Season 3 visa renewals. Travelling from Taiwan, Saverio Tonoli became perhaps the last Italian to enter Vietnam on 1 March before Vietnam closed its borders to Italians the following day. Unable to charter connecting flights, Saverio continues to stay at A. Farm, his inkstain-collage blooms taking on decidedly more viral-esque forms, whilst he awaits news on when he can travel back to his studio in Berlin. Saverio is joined in this period of limbo by Chu Hao Pei from Singapore. Of all the artists, Hao Pei’s residency has been most affected by the coronavirus. His research on the Champa variety of rice in Vietnam, part of a multi-year project to study rice in each of the ASEAN countries, was abruptly halted by the lockdown. Restrictions solidified with the closure of all non-essential business and suspension of all international travel routes on March 25. Confined to A. Farm, Hao Pei has instead been transforming the landscape of his studio by adding the leaves fallen from the large trees in the outdoor courtyard. The farm’s current Vietnamese residents, Ly Trang and Nghia Dang, are slightly better placed coming locally from Hanoi and Saigon respectively. For the time being, they are at least free to return home when they wish. For now, Trang’s investigation into displacement along Saigon’s District 3 canal can resume, and Nghia is finally able to return to the art supply store now that the lockdown has been lifted in Vietnam.

End of Season 2 show at A. Farm, 2020. Image courtesy of A. Farm.

But what can, or should, life after lockdown look like? The question of survival looms for all residencies that are dependent on the participation of artists from abroad. With or without a space, A. Farm’s Season 4 is suspended until international travel restrictions are relaxed. Unable to partake in them, artists may begin to question the value of residencies. Matthew Brannon, A. Farm’s Season 1 resident and board member of the Skowhegan art residency in Maine in the United States of America (USA), reflected on the limitations of the standard residency model, saying “I’m actually unsure what to think if residencies are not international. Having the space and time they offer is beyond valuable, no matter how far one travels. But I’d wonder if a residency (with living facilities) is really necessary or if instead, alternative exhibition and production spaces are more useful.’ Even once lockdown restrictions are fully lifted and international travel can resume, a return will be gradual, and there are likely to be those who feel cautious to restart. We wait to see how the growing ‘plane shame’ surrounding excessive air travel and climate awareness may be accelerated by conversations surrounding the coronavirus and its impact on the environment.³ As people look to remake the world into a ‘new normal’, artists may be less inclined to partake in numerous residencies each year on an international scale. They may also lack the funds to do so.

Whilst COVID-19 has introduced new concerns for the survival of residencies, one positive is that the crisis has kickstarted the art world, along with the rest of the world, into an emergency response mode. Community-led actions such as the popular #artistsupportpledge, where artists promise to reinvest USD200 into buying artwork for every USD1000 they make selling it, illustrate our desire to respond collectively to the crisis.⁴ In Vietnam, it is not possible to gain a non-profit organisation status from the government, which can prevent us from applying for the few funding calls that are opened internationally. Initiatives such as NADA’s Gallery Relief Grant, open to organisations internationally who may have been impacted by COVID-19, and others such as the European Culture of Solidarity Fund, designed to support projects dedicated to fostering much needed solidarity across borders in the wake of the pandemic, are some of the first funding opportunities.⁵ What’s more, to involve the Vietnamese government and cultural police in our activities would leave us vulnerable to the censorship and corruption that complicates the system here. Though art spaces globally struggle with various challenges, for those centered in the West and Global North, there is more access to a network of funding support that is denied to those in the Global South.

‘All Animals Are Equal #2’ at A.Farm, 2019. Image courtesy of Maria Sowter.

Here in Vietnam, without national funding and limited support from private patrons, and with an art world that was just beginning to emerge in the global market, we can only wait and see the long-term consequences of the forecasted world-wide recession.⁶ This situation is reflective of the constant crisis organisations in art world peripheries are placed in. Combined with the prohibition of travel and gatherings drying up revenue streams, spaces such as A. Farm, which play a crucial role in local arts ecosystems, are particularly vulnerable to closure right now. For the collectors, galleries and institutions that benefit from a healthy and generative art world, now is a vital time to invest in the long-term sustainability of that art world and partner with spaces that can help extend this support to artists.

The centering of the virus in the USA and the United Kingdom (UK) has demanded the world’s attention be directed at these two countries in a reflection of their ongoing dominance of our shared global sphere, echoed in the western centric funding structure of our art world. This vestige of colonial reign and continued cultural imperialism dissected by post-colonial scholars such as Homi K. Bhabha, undoubtedly still overshadows our global art world. Attention, funds and flows are still directed to these traditional centres.⁷ What the crisis of A. Farm’s survival demonstrates, of the need for more support to art worlds on the edges of the global, is only highlighted further by the COVID-19 crisis refocusing our collective efforts on a more inclusive and comprehensive global survival plan.

As we unlock and begin to emerge, let the art world lead by example in this new normal we are creating and reconcile our ideals with our actions. This cry for a reimagining is not limited to the art world. Over 200 influential figures signed an open letter in the French daily Le Monde on May 6 calling ‘upon leaders – and all of us as citizens – to leave behind the unsustainable logic that still prevails and to undertake a profound overhaul of our goals, values, and economies.’⁸ If we as a sector are to align ourselves with such voices, it would be hypocritical not to address the inequalities and abuses within our own system first. Art critic Zarina Muhammad of The White Pube explores what a practical approach to this restructuring could look like in the UK in her response to the coronavirus “ideas for a new art world”.⁹ The ideas she begins to flesh out are ones I recognise from our blossoming experimental art world in Vietnam. I see her suggestion that larger institutions partner with grassroots organisations and share budgets in initiatives such as the Sao La art collective, established by Galerie Quynh in 2014, and in 2018 when A. Farm was born from a collaboration of three Saigon institutions.¹⁰

End of Season 2 Show at A. Farm, 2020. Image courtesy of Maria Sowter.

For the time being, COVID-19 means that A. Farm’s Season 4, formerly scheduled to start in July 2020, will likely be postponed to 2021. Until international travel resumes and we are able to receive artists from abroad who make up the majority of our self-funded residents again, the project’s future is uncertain. In the meantime, we are grateful for the intimate art world we have here in Vietnam, and look for other ways to sustain ourselves. As we plan our move to new premises, we wait to see when it might be possible again to open, and rely on the continued support of our communities and partnerships to help see us through this unpredictable time. The situation is likely to be similar for many residencies and art spaces like us, whose existence is continually precarious, with or without a global pandemic. What this moment could lend us however, is the impetus for a collective revaluing and restructuring. It serves as a reminder that the arts possess more than monetary worth, and can act as a site of possibility for reimagining and enacting a wider societal change.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of A&M.
Read all My Own Words essays here.

¹https://nguyenartfoundation.com
²http://san-art.org & http://motplus.xyz
³https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesasquith/2020/01/13/the-spread-of-flight-shame-in-europe-is-greta-thunberg-the-reason-why/#2bc7fa6d69bd & https://shameplane.com
⁴https://www.instagram.com/artistsupportpledge/?hl=en
⁵https://www.newartdealers.org/covid19resources/apply & https://www.culturalfoundation.eu/culture-of-solidarity
⁶https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/01/business/economy/coronavirus-recession.html
⁷https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780190221911/obo-9780190221911-0057.xml
⁸https://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2020/05/06/please-let-s-not-go-back-to-normal_6038793_3232.html
⁹https://www.thewhitepube.co.uk/ideasforanewartworld
¹⁰https://hellosaola.tumblr.com/
¹¹https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/longform/id551088534?i=1000471571835 & https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/31/how-will-the-world-emerge-from-the-coronavirus-crisis

About the Author
Maria Sowter (b.1991, London, UK) has been based between Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Vietnam and London, UK since 2015. She works as a writer and in curatorial and organisational roles for Saigon independent artist-run space MoT+++, A. Farm international art residency, and the Nguyen Art Foundation. More information at mariasowter.xyz.