art space . exhibition space . cafe
art space . exhibition space . cafe
How to sneak a Mang Thit Kiln into Manzi?
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June 14, 2026
May 23, 2026
HOW TO SNEAK A MANG THÍT KILN INTO MANZI?
A display by MM Lab, developed from an ongoing research project supported by the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts in 2025
Time: 11.00 AM – 7.00 PM (Tuesday – Sunday), from May 22 to June 14, 2026
Venue: Manzi Exhibition Space, 2 Ngõ Hàng Bún, Ba Dinh, Hanoi
Free admission.
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Emerging from an unusual hypothetical proposition, the display gathers dozens of models, proposals, and poetic interpretations revolving around a single question: how can a Mang Thít brick kiln be brought into an exhibition space? At the center is a massive and nearly impossible installation: reconstructing and “breathing to life” a Mang Thít kiln at a 1:1 scale using TPU fabric inside the limited exhibition room. This display forms part of The Dichotomy of Heritage and Industrialization in Mang Thít’s Sustainable Development, a research and development project by architect Nguyễn Hà (arb architects) and Kim Hojung (assistant professor at the University of Tennessee).
Located in Vĩnh Long province, the Mang Thít brick-and-kiln region was once one of the largest craft production centers in the Mekong Delta, with nearly 1,500 kilns spread across a canal landscape of more than 3,000 hectares. These kilns were not merely sites of production. They were the living core of an entire labor ecosystem, where earth, fire, water, human hands, and collective memory accumulated across generations.
For more than a century, these towering vaulted structures burned continuously—firing, breathing, and operating like living bodies. Today, that system is slowly dying out due to irreversible changes: depleted resources, shifting policies, and younger generations leaving. The kilns are no longer fired. They stop breathing, standing still like hollowed bodies. People soon recognized the cultural and touristic potential of this landscape. Under the “Mang Thít Contemporary Heritage” initiative, many kilns have been protected from demolition and preserved in situ.
Yet therein lies the paradox: how do you preserve, unchanged, a structure whose very life has always depended on remaining active?
Without fire—without continuous burning and use—the kilns will eventually succumb to weathering itself. Sometimes preserving something in place is merely another way of allowing it to die slowly.
So what if we move it? What if we allow it to transform?
When a kiln no longer burns, can it continue to exist in another form elsewhere, even far away, while still carrying the breath of its own life?
This is where the Art comes in to suggest such an endeavor. Alongside ongoing efforts in planning, architecture, and heritage preservation for the future of Mang Thít, this initiative to bring a kiln into Manzi opens up a collective act of imagination — however absurd it may seem. The display gathers multiple attempts, multiple challenges, multiple ways of “fitting” the kiln into Manzi. And as visitors enter the kiln and breathe with it, somehow part of that imagination can come into being, and some meanings may emerge.
ARTWORKS
GALLERY
Once upon a time, there was a brick kiln in Mang Thít so large it could not slip into the holes of Manzi.
So people began to wonder. And wondering, they tried.
The first one pulled out a brick and found a thread of silk hiding inside. The second wrapped the whole kiln up so it could fire itself. The third pressed a long ribbon of paper against its skin. Someone crept in and stole the light from its belly.
Someone shrank it down to the size of a palm. Someone sat very still and waited for it to dig itself up from the ground. One person carried its ashes home and fed them carefully. Another one let it drift away with water. Someone, rather bravely, sent it humming along the 500 kV North-South transmission line. And one person, the most careful of all, built each brick its own tiny altar, so the spirit would know where to return. Then came the one who took the whole kiln apart, cooked a pot of sticky rice until it was soft and warm, pressed it back into the shape of another kiln, and carried each grain, one by one, into Manzi.
And at last, someone shook their head and said, "No more." Don't carry it in at all. Just let it breathe again in its own old shape.
Then came the ants.
Then came the dung beetles.
Then came the people from the stars.
And even the wind blew in to help.
Everyone thought they were doing a wonderful thing.
But the kiln just couldn't fit into Manzi as one whole body.
To this very day, nobody knows if the kiln ever truly made it inside.
All they know is that ever since then, something inside Manzi has been breathing. Softly rising, softly falling. As if the kiln is still trying to fit.
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How to sneak a Mang Thít kiln into Manzi?
MM Lab
Concept: Nguyễn Hà + Nguyễn Lê Minh Nhựt
Design and Construction Coordinator: Lê Quang Trường Giang
Sound: Ngô Thu Hương
Sound Assistant: Triệu Minh Hải
Sound Advisor: Nguyễn Xuân Sơn (Sơn X)
Lighting Design: Croled
Construction Volunteers: Nguyễn Lan Anh, Nguyễn Gia Bảo, Đào Anh Khôi, Lý Tuấn Linh, Nguyễn Tuyết Phương Mai, Phạm Thị Hồng Nhung, Hà Há Ha Hà Phương, Lê Thu Thủy, Hoàng Văn Việt
Kiln Squeezers: Đào Phương Tú Anh, Vũ Tuấn Anh, Nguyễn Gia Bảo, Nguyễn Thùy Dương, Nguyễn Thị Thùy Dương, Hoàng Nguyễn Minh Giang, Lê Quang Trường Giang, Nguyễn Thị Hồng Hà, Trần Tuấn Hưng, Bùi Doãn Huy, Trần Thanh Huyền, Tống Khánh Linh, Nguyễn Hữu Long, Nguyễn Phương Mai, Bùi Minh Nghĩa, Lê Quỳnh Như, Đoàn Duy Thái, Lương Minh Thư, Nguyễn Thị Thùy, Phùng Thị Xuyến
MM Lab warmly thanks Mr. Đặng Sĩ Quỳnh and Mr. Nguyễn Văn Đạt for their generous support of the project.
MM Lab also warmly thanks Manzi and Nguyễn Huyền Trang for their support in bringing the project to life.
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How to sneak a Mang Thít kiln into Manzi? is part of the ongoing research project The Dichotomy of Heritage and Industrialization in Mang Thít’s Sustainable Development*, funded by the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts in 2025, with Nguyễn Hà and Kim Hojung as grantees.
* The research project has been carried out by MM Lab since August 2025:
Research Director: Nguyễn Lê Minh Nhựt
Core Team: Nguyễn Hà, Kim Hojung, Trang Bio, Vũ Tuấn Anh, Lê Quang Trường Giang, Nguyễn Phương Mai, Tống Khánh Linh, Nguyễn Thị Hồng Hà, Lê Thu Thủy
Collaborators: Ylan Vo, Giuseppe De Francesco, Trương Uyên Ly, University of Architecture Ho Chi Minh City