Nếu mình đốt cháy rễ, mình có thể quay lại về đất không?
Và về nước thì sao?
Có tưới được con đường về quê không?
If we cremate our roots, will we return home to the soil?
And what about returning to water?
Can we irrigate the path to go home?
'Cà phê', is the French-given term for coffee in Vietnamese, and the performance of brewing Vietnamese drip coffee attempts to symbolically replenish and repatriate the soil―'soil' and 'water' both being a homonyms for both the elements of dirt/earth and water, and for country/nation. Water steeps in robusta before it passes through tin cà phê filters. The morpheme 'phê' means to 'get high', mimicked as water elevates to caffeine through the filter of robusta, in spite of the lack of upward mobility in farming the colonial crop. Gravity brews the coffee, as well as gravity returning water (also a homonym for nation) to soil. The glass houses the coffee disallowing it to 'return' and 'replenish', however repatriation only remains symbolically possible as corrupt capitalist governmental structures (in spite of the socialist façade) render national welfare secondary to maintenance of party totalitarianism.
Coffee was introduced to Việt Nam by French L'Indochine colonialism, and Vietnamese coffee culture arose in spite of this origin. Robusta is locally favoured in spite of it's acidity that deters the global market which prefers arabica. Vietnamese robusta becomes nationalised, whilst the export arabica (Vietnamese coffee being 2nd most prolific in the world) unfortunately is delegated to instant coffee grounds only, and not granted artisanal status.
By burning wood to boil water or 'cremating roots', slash-and-burn agriculture for soil fertility is emulated, as well as the performance mirroring protesting coffee farmers in Vietnam in solidarity, burning coffee crops in order to protest the lowering coffee prices that do not correlate with increasing global demand for coffee. The Vietnamese tradition of 'burning for future prosperity' is evident in ancestral worship of burning of incense and joss paper; and even self-immolation by Buddhist monks and nuns such as Kuo-shun, Thích Quảng Đức, and Thích Nữ Vinh Ngoc for political freedom.
The sounds of boiling water, coffee drips and crackling flames are amplified by a system of microphones throughout the performance space, structurally similar to that of irrigation systems. As the performance develops temporally, more sounds will accumulate, rendering a sense of anxiety and claustrophobia that may perhaps become a soothing white noise eventually as it reaches an auditory point of precipitation. The steam and heat from the fire boiling water, echoes this oppressive atmosphere and even creates a microclimate of humidity in the arena.
This system of sonic irrigation harvests an anxiety that dissipates to an inescapable droning white noise. This project seeks solace in that pervasive noise which cannot be controlled or changed.
Nếu mình đốt cháy rễ, mình có thể quay lại về đất không?
Và về nước thì sao?
Có tưới được con đường về quê không?
If we cremate our roots, will we return home to the soil?
And what about returning to water?
Can we irrigate the path to go home?
'Cà phê', is the French-given term for coffee in Vietnamese, and the performance of brewing Vietnamese drip coffee attempts to symbolically replenish and repatriate the soil―'soil' and 'water' both being a homonyms for both the elements of dirt/earth and water, and for country/nation. Water steeps in robusta before it passes through tin cà phê filters. The morpheme 'phê' means to 'get high', mimicked as water elevates to caffeine through the filter of robusta, in spite of the lack of upward mobility in farming the colonial crop. Gravity brews the coffee, as well as gravity returning water (also a homonym for nation) to soil. The glass houses the coffee disallowing it to 'return' and 'replenish', however repatriation only remains symbolically possible as corrupt capitalist governmental structures (in spite of the socialist façade) render national welfare secondary to maintenance of party totalitarianism.
Coffee was introduced to Việt Nam by French L'Indochine colonialism, and Vietnamese coffee culture arose in spite of this origin. Robusta is locally favoured in spite of it's acidity that deters the global market which prefers arabica. Vietnamese robusta becomes nationalised, whilst the export arabica (Vietnamese coffee being 2nd most prolific in the world) unfortunately is delegated to instant coffee grounds only, and not granted artisanal status.
By burning wood to boil water or 'cremating roots', slash-and-burn agriculture for soil fertility is emulated, as well as the performance mirroring protesting coffee farmers in Vietnam in solidarity, burning coffee crops in order to protest the lowering coffee prices that do not correlate with increasing global demand for coffee. The Vietnamese tradition of 'burning for future prosperity' is evident in ancestral worship of burning of incense and joss paper; and even self-immolation by Buddhist monks and nuns such as Kuo-shun, Thích Quảng Đức, and Thích Nữ Vinh Ngoc for political freedom.
The sounds of boiling water, coffee drips and crackling flames are amplified by a system of microphones throughout the performance space, structurally similar to that of irrigation systems. As the performance develops temporally, more sounds will accumulate, rendering a sense of anxiety and claustrophobia that may perhaps become a soothing white noise eventually as it reaches an auditory point of precipitation. The steam and heat from the fire boiling water, echoes this oppressive atmosphere and even creates a microclimate of humidity in the arena.
This system of sonic irrigation harvests an anxiety that dissipates to an inescapable droning white noise. This project seeks solace in that pervasive noise which cannot be controlled or changed.