Artists

Thy Truong (they/she) is an artist and DJ working across sound, installation, sculpture and performance. Listening forms a starting point and artistic attitude: a way of paying attention to what is in motion within, between and around us. Their practice centres on bicultural identity, the Vietnamese diaspora in Switzerland, and the traces of migration, colonialism and war within memory and family history. Sound and material are closely intertwined: textures, sculptural forms and spatial arrangements give memories and sensations a physical presence. In Kodama, Thy draws on the tree spirits of Japanese folklore. Using red acrylic paint, Thy develops three-dimensional forms in which painting moves from the flat surface into the sculptural. The resulting bodies appear as carriers of spectral forces woven through all living things. For Jungkunst, Thy revisits the work through the complex and multidirectional energy of shadow, a metaphorical state of the subconscious. Memory emerges not as something fixed to be preserved, but as a shifting force: shaped by loss and history while remaining open to transformation.

Does your work try to preserve particular memories, or does it allow for it so become something else and if so, what exactly?
I want them to become. Memories become energies of potentiality – an entity of casting hope of becoming multidirectional beings. Since memories are fabricated by my subconscious, I may not be in control of what I remember. It almost feels like magic, coincidence or superstition but it‘s more simple: the brain can only keep what we are capable of holding. In my case, my feelings come from memories, awakened by reconnection with Vietnam, but are never resolved, but very true, because emotions are what I can hold onto. It’s the only orientation of the reality I have from my childhood and I try not to overwrite them.