The elements that make up "ripples of the day" consist of three principal materials, which, at first glance, appear to share no connection at all, even bearing entirely opposing qualities: concrete salvaged from demolished buildings, bamboo chopsticks hand-carved by the artist's father, and dyed plywood. Yet traced back to their roots, all three media are bound to Ban Ga's own memory and life:

The concrete is a trace from his youth spent working on the construction site with his father.

The chopsticks are an effort to draw closer, to hold on to the bond between father and child, in a kind of battle against the limitation of time, because however endless it may seem to flow, time is itself only a finite resource for any human being.

The plywood, the material that has become the backbone of Ban Ga’s labor, marks his own identity and work ethic that he has preserved for a decade.

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The angularity of the forms, the collisions and interweavings between materials, along with the textures and silhouette shapes present here, are all the result of a long process of manual labor: direct contact through gripping, pressing, friction, abrasion, carving... meticulously repeated over time. Consequently, the finished piece is not merely a design idea coming into being but inevitably holds within it (even if hidden and rendered invisible) traces of the body (sweat, oil, the tactile memory held in every touch) and of time (in layers accumulated or worn away)—becoming true scars, the ripples of the day that their maker can neither erase nor ignore.

The space at manzi is now a square block, dense with darkness. Objects are placed, alone or in groups, within lighting or blurred zones, amid sound echoing around them randomly: at times dropping into lyrical, musical notes; at times clashing as overlapping noises; at times suspending in mute silence. Everything interlocks into a whole with great compression, a tightness as precise as a wood joint. Beautiful, poetic, yet uneasy…

The poetry of a faint beam of light slipping through a narrow gap, casting onto the floor with fragile lines, like an ambiguous guiding trail.

The poetry of a wooden pillow with a gently curved form, its surface woven from hanging bamboo chopsticks, inviting like an instrument waiting to be played.

The poetry of loose, airy shavings left over from carving, suspended above a block of concrete dyed in an otherworldly shade of blue.

And woven through it…

The unease of a tilted stool, light striking hard, breaking against the wall into distorted shapes—a dismal shadow and the trace of a ruined landscape.

The unease of a motionless rocking chair, as if abandoned, stranded in an eerie pool of light.

The unease of a concrete block balanced precariously on a few broken chopsticks, its fresh-dyed skin unable to fully conceal the roughness of the rebar beneath.

And glowing within dim light, as in a sunset: a vague yet certain premonition of an inevitable separation. Three chopsticks pierce down into the concrete block like raindrops falling, splashing into tiny droplets, spreading across the surface in a circular ripple, exactly at an indentation left behind by a core-drill bit. One could say a falling raindrop is a symbol of life—but turn the figure upside down, and it evokes a completely contradictory impression in Vietnamese collective memory: the typical image of "đũa bông," inherently referring to a farewell ritual. That pair of chopsticks, with one end whittled backward so the bamboo fibers fray outward like blossoms, is traditionally planted into a bowl of rice beside a boiled egg as an offering to the newly deceased—who lie in state to be mourned before encoffinment.

These are only a few among countless possibilities of sensation and imagination that Ban Ga’s staging might evoke. One need only sit down and wait: the collisions will slowly reverberate, revealing the transformations, the departures, and the endings beyond postponing. What is lost and what remains—both taste of bitterness. Favor either way of seeing, and the ache barely eases. But seen across the whole surface, they're only ripples of the day.