Art Labor: Cloud Chamber

Para Site is pleased to present Cloud Chamber, the first institutional exhibition to survey the activities of Art Labor, a Ho Chi Minh City-based collective formed by Thao Nguyen Phan, Truong Cong Tung and Arlette Quynh-Anh Tran. 

The exhibition Cloud Chamber presents Art Labor’s long-term historical research, poetic observations, and decade-long practice of relationship-building with the Jrai community in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. Alongside Art Labor’s newly commissioned and existing works, the exhibition features artwork from Jrai artists, with whom the collective have created collaborative projects since 2016, archival material from a missionary-turned-anthropologist in the French colonial period, and works by contemporary artists inspired by the region. 

By reframing the region beyond its turbulent past, Cloud Chamber looks to engage the audience in an imaginative reflection on the region’s complex history and its ongoing impact, from war, industrialisation, to the lingering effects of missionary activity. The exhibition title Cloud Chamber alludes to the duality of matter and antimatter reacting to one another, a concept echoed by reincarnation beliefs in indigenous cosmologies of the Central Highlands. Expanding on this duality like a gravitational field, the exhibition explores the interplay of opposing forces—regeneration and destruction, modernity and tradition, reality and dream—that continues to shape the complex dynamics and ever-changing landscape of the Central Highlands today.

Within an exhibition setting, a constellation of artworks and happenings explores collisions between science and mythology, human and non-human—to open up spaces for new forces of change to emerge. Jrai wood-carved sculptures and musical instruments are presented alongside moving image, installation, drawings and archival photographs that together weave a counter-narrative to prevalent representations, past and present, of the Central Highlands. 

Art Labor’s collaborative projects, which often take on a peripatetic, rhizomatic pattern, embody a process of continuous adaptation and evolution, akin to the journey of seeding, nurturing, and cultivating. Prior to the exhibition at Para Site, Cloud Chamber was developed through intensive field research and ongoing exchanges in the Central Highlands, which culminated in a series of activations in July 2024 that took place across various locations. 

In the Central Highlands, the Jrai community and Art Labor engaged in a series of public gatherings, open air exhibitions, and events that included sculpture displays, film screenings, live musical performances, and outdoor installations. Through the exhibition hosted by Para Site, the journey extends beyond the Central Highlands to Hong Kong, as the ideas and relationships formed during the year-long process continue, creating new connections within an expanded network of collaborators.

Cloud Chamber features work by Art Labor (Thao Nguyen Phan, Truong Cong Tung, Arlette Quynh-Anh Tran), in collaboration with Jacques Dournes, Nguyen Phuong Linh, Puih Gloh, Puih Han, Rahlan Loh, Rcham Jeh, R Cham Tih, Romah Aleo, Siu Huel, Siu Kin, Siu Lon, and Truong Que Chi.

Cloud Chamber is curated by Celia Ho.

Cloud Chamber: Central Highlands Journey is commissioned by Para Site, Hong Kong and T:> Works, Singapore.