Thái Nhật MinhSculpture solo show by THÁI NHẬT MINH 13.06 - 13.07.2014 Breeding Season - July 13, 2014 June 13, 2014 Thái Nhật Minh Inspired by the breeding season, during which living creatures grow enlivened, elated, enraptured, when all crave unification, procreation and seek an escape from sorrow and solitude, this new series by Thai Nhat Minh aspires to portray the connection between sculpture and abstract notions of landscape, time, and mentality. An intimate relationship - seemingly extraneous yet consistent between natural connections and those in contemporary life - one that remains clouded in everyone’s consciousness. * The show is part of manzi art programme supported by the Cultural Development and Exchange Fund (CDEF) of the Danish Embassy. ARTWORKS GALLERY OPENING NIGHT See more about artist(s)

Trần Trọng VũText installation by TRẦN TRỌNG VŨ 19.03 - 23.03.2014 I will come to see you with a visual story - March 23, 2014 March 19, 2014 Trần Trọng Vũ Images and languages are used as tools for human expression. They both are often being put together and sometime act as integral part of each other in order to bring multi-meanings & answers for an object. Read the images and see the words, write a picture and draw and essay – we can call these the jobs of both art-makers and art-enjoyers. Read the images with words might be a fascinating way to break away from the images. Search for images in words can also be a nice suggestion to go beyond the words. ‘I will come to see you with a visual story’ will show to the audience the first part of Trần Trọng Vũ’s new art project, in which language and visual aspect are results of a series of extraordinary facts. This visit will also introduce other artworks of the project under the possible forms of litrature and visual art. ARTWORKS GALLERY OPENING NIGHT See more about artist(s)

Nguyễn Thị Huệ Hà Đào Hạnh Trần Lê Xuân Tiến Nguyễn Đức Huy Mai Phạm Thịnh Nguyễn Jamie Maxtone-GrahamA group photography exhibition 07.12.2018 - 07.01.2019 Second Opinion - January 7, 2019 December 7, 2018 Nguyễn Thị Huệ Hà Đào Hạnh Trần Lê Xuân Tiến Nguyễn Đức Huy Mai Phạm Thịnh Nguyễn Jamie Maxtone-Graham 'The several different series of photographs presented in this exhibition were developed out of a long-term workshop experience at Hanoi DocLab and produced in 2017. Each of the photographers located a public or private landscape that held meaning for them and for a number of months explored that photographically. The projects were developed out of group critique sessions with participants sharing their works-in-progress with the others also producing their own series. It was a highly supportive, nurturing and ultimately collaborative effort. So the opportunity to exhibit the results of that process presented a moment to continue the collaboration - the curators of this exhibition came through the workshop and have seen all the portfolios developed from the beginning, they know the difficulty and the processes intimately and have brought them to this realization on the wall before you. This is the second group exhibition of DocLab’s photography work. The first, in 2013, was called Autopsy Of Days – a title suggesting a kind of clinical examination, a post-mortem by the photographers in examining their own lives, their own time within their own city of Hanoi. In medicine, when patients receive a difficult diagnosis from a doctor and are uncertain about how to proceed with treatment, often they will get a second opinion from another medical professional in order to confirm, dispute or amend the original finding. So here, by a different group, is a second look' - Jamie Maxtone-Graham ARTWORKS GALLERY About the artworks 1 . Story of Blue and Red by Nguyễn Thị Huệ Everybody could be described by one or a group of color. It could be their aura or physical appearance. It could be the melancholic, cold deep blue or the burning red of fire. It could be a beautiful confluence or vast emptiness that cannot be be connected. Through the memories of her parents in her childhood and her feelings about their relationship, the artist wants to portray their relationship as to look back and to discover more about them through the photography process that has interaction with her parents 2. The Mirror by Hà Đào In this interior setting, two bodies experience pain, pleasure and sensations in between. The camera is turned at both the girl and her lover, sometimes peering at what’s living inside a house with a half open window, an enclosed fish tank and a sealed plastic bag. This is a slightly truthful, slightly fantastical diary that is open to the public. These are captured moments of craving, clinging, confronting and pushing away, which rely on the camera sensor as a safe box, whose meanings slip once the person is not present. 3. Another World by Hạnh Trần "One day, I was wondering in a vast burning grass field. I saw the wood wastes dried out to make matches. I was silently watching them: the shape of the wood resembles human eyes, the grass burning out from its root still felt warm. I photographed them as an observer. I went on to capture little details of the natural world surrounding me. This allows me to see and feel them close to my body. The shape and lines of a leaf could be the neutrons in my brain or the veins in my heart… With materials from nature that are considered garbage, I hope to reveal and visualize our human connection with another world that exists right here and now, but might fall into oblivion." 4. Mom-me của Việt Vũ Mom-me is my first personal image project about my mom made in late 2016. I used the camera as a means to experience the traces time has left on my mom's body. This collection is also an exploration inside my mind about what the relationship between a mom and a son looks like. While making the nude photos that shows apparent old-age traces on my mom, I had clear intention of using natural on-spot lighting. In that way, I could reach the simplicity and the natural quality of the images. That helped me come closest to the character – my mom. Also, in that way, I could expose the somewhat under-dogged character in the most direct way. Other photos reveal my mom in a gentler and somewhat poetic way as if in a sweet dream. 5. Looking for the 4th side by Lê Xuân Tiến The series is a process of confronting scenes on which the author imposed his memories, dissecting the memories from the scenes so they can both be looked at again in a different form. A piece of memory only exists in the the mind, and the scenes do not carry the author's personal imprint. Could this attempt succeed? 6. '112' by Nguyễn Đức Huy With this work, the artist repeats the process of recording the subject day by day with the same camera angle and composition, following the dying process of the tangerines. In this whole process, the artist asks himself: At which moment are they actually dead? 7. What I shoot when I go around the city by Mai Phạm This project starts when I take my camera around the city where I’m living, recording all imagery that caught my attention, freely and naturally. Slowly, the images that I want to remember from those wandering times started to be more focused. They reflects my feeling about the city. To me, Hanoi is a living creature, that inside which each scenery and resident has connect and exist in different ways. OPENING NIGHT See more about artist(s)

Nguyễn Ban Gaan open studio by Nguyễn Ban Ga ripples of the day - October 25, 2026 September 29, 2026 Nguyễn Ban Ga 𝑑𝑢̛ 𝑐𝑎̉𝑛ℎ | 𝑟𝑖𝑝𝑝𝑙𝑒𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑑𝑎𝑦 𝗡𝗴𝘂𝘆𝗲̂̃𝗻 𝗕𝗮𝗻 𝗚𝗮 𝟮𝟵.𝟬𝟵 - 𝟮𝟱.𝟭𝟬.𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟲 ____ After nearly ten years spent largely away from pure artistic practice to focus on design and the craft of woodworking and furniture-making, Nguyễn Ban Ga returns with "ripples of the day" at manzi—an open studio anchored at the intersection of design , craft , and sculpture , together with an installation of space, light, and sound. Emerging from a deeply personal disclosure—private preoccupations circling around memory, family bonds, distance in relationships, and the fear of separation—"ripples of the day," once it took form, seemed to slip beyond its own frame, somehow carrying (despite initial hesitations) other narratives along with it. These narratives transcend personal reminiscences or private struggles of everyday life, to echo the wider tremors of the society and the broader turbulence of our times, through expressions that are wistful yet poetic: on transformation, and on loss. "ripples of the day" - an open studio by Nguyễn Ban Ga sound: Nguyễn Trinh Thi lighting consultant: Nguyễn Trần Nam *Acknowledgements: Manzi and the artist would like to sincerely thank all the support from family and fellow artists, with special gratitude to anh Nam Béo and chị Trinh Thi for standing by every step of the way, and to the superhuman technical team, Biên, Minh, and Tuân. ARTWORKS GALLERY 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. ____ 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. OPENING NIGHT See more about artist(s)

Nguyễn Thế Sơn Trần Hậu Yên ThếA Duo exhibition by NGUYỄN THẾ SƠN & TRẦN HẬU YÊN THẾ 10.10 - 29.10 - 2013 Nhà Tây Transforms - October 29, 2013 October 10, 2013 Nguyễn Thế Sơn Trần Hậu Yên Thế Duo exhibition by Nguyen The Son & Tran Hau Yen The – an exploration of the physical and moral landscape of Hanoi as it transforms and mutates into the 21st century. In his previous body of work, Nha Mat Pho (Houses facing the street), Son addressed the social issues of the rampant materialism of the society, the discrepancy of wealth between the rich and the poor, and the imposing Western commoditization of the people. In this latest series 'Nhà Tây Transforms', Son continues his research of the transformations of the urban landscapes. Fellow artist, researcher Yen The adds yet another historical layer to this discovery of the life of the Nhà Tây (Western Villa). Following the maps and drawings of the French intellectual Henri Oger, who in 1908-1909 created 4,577 drawings of every aspect of the lives of the inhabitants, Yen The creates his own layer of analysis of the lifestyle of the inhabitants and the original façade of the villa. With this 'Nhà Tây Transforms', Nguyen the Son and Yen The leave the viewer alone with their perceptions of how life is transformed by progress as it is named, and the repercussions of this modernity upon society. ARTWORKS GALLERY OPENING NIGHT See more about artist(s)

Lê Hoàng Bích PhượngA solo exhibition by LÊ HOÀNG BÍCH PHƯỢNG 08.09 - 02.10.2017 Beyond The Hills - October 2, 2017 September 8, 2017 Lê Hoàng Bích Phượng Marking her return to silk work after a deviation to ceramics stems, in ‘Beyond The Hills’, Phuong shows a series of delicate silk paintings and a minimalist installation, dealing with the question about concepts of self consciousness, time and personal space --- “he took his last breath and he was gone. I wondered what was going on - did he ever think about what he wanted to do in life for himself? Or was it just to raise the children and make money for the family? At that moment – as everyone was gathered - I saw this landscape, a full moon, above the forest.” - Le Hoang Bich Phuong – Ho Chi Minh City, August 2017, speaking about the moment her grandfather passed a month earlier. This dreamscape which materialised in front of Le Hoang Bich Phuong’s inner eye the moment her grandfather passed away is the subject of the delicate silk works that comprise ‘Beyond The Hills’ – a deeply personal series, rooted in her exploration of the Buddhist lineage she comes from. The new series is underpinned with spirituality that deals with the question that surfaced when she looked into how notions of self, space and meaning are created– where am I me? And in the context of her grandfather’s death: Where Are you between the before and after? What do you experience? How long does it last? What Le Hoang Bich Phuong attempts to comprehend and capture in her work are concepts of time and space that are in their very nature fleeting and cannot be contained (the present moment) or reached (the horizon). She says of the horizons she paints: “It’s a line, a surface and it is the space where mindfulness lives.” And the same goes for the present moment, “here is tomorrow, here is yesterday and here is now which belongs to nowhere.” The horizons painted in simple shapes, clean lines and colour choices are a figment of her imagination - a destination that can only be reached in one's mind. And though this place is meant as a space for the mind and the self to rest, the artist is also depicts the disruptions of a state of mindfulness in a way that is subtle yet significant – they render the soft purple (spirit) of her perfect space red (anger), abstract triangles turn from hills into spikes penetrating the full moon and there is a grotesque underworld eating away at the foundation of pristine landscapes. The Buddhist teaching that suffering is a part of life and to strive towards enlightenment is a quest to be liberated from suffering is present in the work: “How do we accept death and the circle of life and nirvana? You accept that you have to keep living. One afterlife after another, and your accepting that is mindfulness.” (Le Hoang Bich Phuong, Ho Chi Minh City, August 2017) Le Hoang Bich Phuong’s return to silk work after a deviation to ceramic stems from her discovery that her painting practice is a form of meditation. She paints slowly and calms down, turning to her work in moments of anger to see the emotion transformed. As with her self-portrait in the series, which too is rooted in her being forced out of her personal space by spats with and provocations from those closest to her. But in painting the emotions dissipate, only to enter the next cycle of calm followed by emotional upheaval. “When the emotion changes, the plan I had had, like an angry painting, whichshould be ugly turns pretty and gentle. Sometimes I stop there. Can you freeze a moment in time when painting is the thing that makes it evaporate?” (Le Hoang Bich Phuong, Ho Chi Minh City, August 2017) In its entirety ‘Beyond The Hills’ is deeply personal work both in subject and its production by an artist ready to listen to her intuition. Article written for the exhibition by Fabiola Büchele *This event is part of Manzi’s art programme supported by CDEF of the Danish Embassy in Vietnam ARTWORKS GALLERY BEYOND THE HILLS - ARTIST STATEMENT “‘Beyond the Hills’ is a journal of reflections of my most recent personal experiences. Experiences that include the flashes of lighting of loss and the faint remnants of life and death. These works compose a chapter of my psychological diary illustrated during the process of making the exhibition. Also present is the fierce protest of my inner core against a sudden intrusion by another individual of my personal space. My reaction was so strong and all encompassing that even a faint breath of the intruder could boil up my frustration. My raw sense of self and need for being undisturbed coincided with the passing of a member of my family. At the instance of death I was speechless and drifted into dreams where hills, the moon, and layers of grass appeared. In this series, I present all of these intangible emotions and experiences in the form of dreamscapes and shapes that provide a visual record of invisible concepts. I was intrigued by figures and forms subject to the rule of energetic regulations like the planets in our solar system - all of them in orbit around a particular centre that imposes limitations forcing them to trace rings. I believed that the proportions of these rings possess a source of energy that in turn protect the core that binds them. If individuals were to be at the centre of such systems of interconnectedness each individual universe would differ in proportion and trajectory – much like a mandala. Various cultures and scholars have used the concept of mandalas to display an individual’s universe in miniature. The perimeters of such a universe attracts thoughts and energies to gravitate towards its core, while at the same time defining a border which an intruder or visitor crosses when moving into an individual’s personal space. Whether the reaction is to welcome or to expulse and the change in attitude or emotion of the host largely depends on the pace of invasion. So close are the notions of private and public space in relation to the self that the elasticity of the spherical boundary allows the intrusion to a certain degree before determining whether to expel the invader. Each individual is a universe, shaped by the discovery of one’s own great cosmos. The protecting rings are increasingly contoured as you encounter other universes and define your ego in relation to them. And for one individual to penetrate the core of another he or she must overcome a lot of personality rings only to discover that each of them is made from the same materials as the rest of the galaxy. *** About the installation work INVADERS The installation represents an individual cosmos with rings around its centre. Limits are defined on the same plane and reflect all the layers covering the core. This personal space is arranged with the same structure as the solar system, with inner and outer rings, the sizes of which rely on each how the work is encapsulated in the exhibition space and how each individual viewer decides to interact with it. And with any intrusion the first steps into the circle is recorded and an alarm is sent to the core. The recurring depiction of a horizon in my works represents a space between heaven and earth that belongs to neither- it is ‘today’, as it sits between ‘yesterday’ and ‘tomorrow’ but can never be captured. The horizon reflects and senses all intrusion and all personal characteristics revolve around it without favouring of either day or night. It is here, at this unreachable place that I found shelter, a space free from the obligation of making a choice. Nestling in that space, I can be present in two worlds, without a sense of belonging to either. And it is here that the dream of my grandfather lives, one that I saw as he slipped from life. I stood on the landscape that materialised in front of me and promised myself that I would capture the image in paintings. MANDALA The mandala in my work is narrowed in scope than the images it is based on, which include Jung’s personality chart, Buddhist mandalas and the structure of planets in the solar system. There are parallels among inspirations from science, spirituality and human psychology, but my mandala refers only to the labyrinth at the depth of my psyche, which is at once a tranquil oasis and a room with so many doorways and directions that it is likely I will eventually lock myself in and shut myself away in the room of my own mind. Though from a different perspective, this may enable me to discover a brand new skyline shaped both by surroundings factors and inner conceptions at that particular moment. The self thus is a mandala reflecting itself and the other worlds it encounters. I am who I am, exactly as stipulated in DNA, but I realized I also hold the key to happiness in the centre of each cell in my body. OPENING NIGHT See more about artist(s)

Nguyễn Thị Thanh Maian open studio by Nguyễn Thị Thanh Mai Faint Traces - September 28, 2025 September 6, 2025 Nguyễn Thị Thanh Mai Faint Traces —an open studio by talented Hue-based artist Nguyễn Thị Thanh Mai features Mai's most recent body of work as a further chapter in her decade-long research into the stateless Vietnamese communities residing in Cambodia. ➖ Opening Party: 6.30 pm, Saturday, September 6, 2025 ➖ Venue: Manzi Exhibition Space, ngõ Hàng Bún, Ba Đình, Hà Nội ➖ Opening hours: 11.00 – 19.00 (Tuesday – Sunday) * Free admission *Please note: the open studio is not suitable for audiences under 14 years old. First introduced in July 2025 at the Hiroshima House Art Gallery Project (Phnom Penh), Faint Traces comprises ongoing works across multiple media—video, photography, installation, and drawing. The project mobilizes heterogeneous source materials: colonial and postcolonial maps, cartographies, archival documents, and expert consultations, as well as the artist’s self-assembled repository of field notes, oral testimonies, site photographs & recordings and found objects within the community. Through these materials, the open studio revisits the marginal, often erased histories of Vietnamese diaspora communities in Cambodia. The intergenerational trajectories of these communities are inextricably entangled with Cambodia’s histories of colonial domination, armed conflict, and forced displacement, as well as the collective trauma of genocidal violence under the Khmer Rouge regime. Persistently, the community remains structurally relegated to the position of the outsider, if not actively erased, within dominant historical narratives. Building on her earlier projects concerning identity and belonging based on the specific case of the stateless paracitizens accepted neither by Vietnam nor Cambodia, with Faint Traces, Thanh Mai ‘makes its way back into their collective memories and oral histories, piecing together a blurred and expansive portrait of migration and displacement, one filled with myth and etched with traces of violence.’ (excerpt from the artist statement). While retracing tributaries back to their source, Thanh Mai resists the impulse to resolve origins, to weave a seamless continuum of meaning. Instead, she allows the materials to appear in their very fractures, obscurities, and dispersions, interweaving experimentations and imaginative interventions. The result is an archive that, while partial and fragmentary, remains mutable: shifting from one iteration of display to another, reassembling provisional points of contact where past events, present emotions, and the rhythms of the exhibition space resonate together. Yet, might such an endeavor remain no more than an effort to stitch together shards and fragments, flickering recollections, and unrealized dreams? Precariousness and estrangement are inescapable conditions, as all agents involved—the community itself, the artist, the researcher, and the spectator—inhabit the position of the outsider. Within this framework, Mai’s own stated aim “to keep these stories from dissolving into water” raises a critical question: what forms of resonance might persist? Perhaps precisely when the faint traces are seen, though they endure only as residue of what has already evaporated—irreversible, irretrievable—the void/blank space around them comes into being and becomes perceptible. And through that act of re-narration and re-imagining (painful as it is, often futile as it seems), the traces still bear witness to a life once lived. Was it not Dostoevsky, through his dreamer in White Nights, who confronted us with the question, "How can you ever live if you have no history/no stories to tell?" As for that remaining blank space—though obscure—it may, once recognized, still harbor the possibility that one day dreams might take root, and futures yet unformed might sprout and anchor themselves. ARTWORKS GALLERY _______________________________ "When my mother dreams of home, she dreams only of the house in Hải Phòng where she lived as a child. Though she spent the rest of her life in many other homes, not once did she dream of them. The subconscious is hazy, yet potent." I borrowed the words of a friend to give shape to my own questions and reflections on place and belonging – the very themes that sparked my interest in migration and its intergenerational reverberations, eventually guiding me back through history to the starting point of this research project. If Day by Day was an exploration and inquiry into identity and the often-overlooked experiences of the ethnic Vietnamese communities living on the Tonle Sap in Cambodia, then Faint Traces makes its way back into their collective memories and oral histories, piecing together a blurred and expansive portrait of migration and displacement, one filled with myth and etched with traces of violence. >>> CHECK OUT DETAILS OF WORKS IN THE CATALOGUE HERE OPENING NIGHT See more about artist(s)

Lê Đình Chungan open studio by Lê Đ.Chunh following the stone wall and we found an electric generator - July 13, 2025 June 13, 2025 Lê Đình Chung Opening party: 06.30 PM Friday 13 June, 2025 On display: 11.00 AM - 07.00 PM Tue - Sun | from 14 June until 13 July 2025 Manzi Exhibition Space, 2 ngõ Hàng Bún, Ba Đình Free entrance >>> CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL CATALOGUE *** This special summer show at Manzi acts as a prelude to Lê Đ.Chunh’s ongoing multimedia art project, which began in 2017. The project is a long-term research into a resettled migrant community in what was known as a New Economic Zone during the Đổi Mới era (from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s), specifically in Di Linh, Lâm Đồng. The occupants were part of a state-enforced resettlement program, a large-scale postwar operation that relocated people from lowland and urban areas to the highland & mountainous areas, and border regions. This program was an effort of the Vietnamese government to redistribute the population and reconstruct the nation’s economy after decades of strife. Over there, life was forcibly re-established atop the lingering ruins of the colonial period: abandoned plantations were converted into state-run farms; houses were erected on the remains of derelict tea factories; and running alongside a stone wall—the leftover irrigation structures on small streams were reused to power rudimentary generators. These acts of appropriation, though obvious and necessary for survival, carried with them the quiet irony and absurdity of a coerced negotiation with history, where survival meant adapting to—rather than overcoming—the alien remnants of another era, a reluctant inheritance that shaped life without ever truly belonging to it. The series of paintings on dzo paper by Lê Đ.Chunh presented in this open studio reflect personal recollections and plain observations about the life in this land—a kind of documentation that layers the artist’s internal compression of memory, physical traces, and communal experiences. In seemingly loose and wild compositions, the impulsive placements of fragmented details appear inconsequential and random at first. However, such constant recurrence begins to disturb our vision, gradually prompting contemplation: A fire burning before a church, A horse bearing a pair of breasts, A couple struck by lightning, Dogs with uncanny expressions and ambiguous gestures, suggesting a mysterious twist or unexpected accident, A crowd gathering, jubilant as they await the rare broadcast of an entertainment program, Faceless figures masked by drooping hoods, heads huddled in gossip or fighting mid-drunken stumble, Someone on crutches… Someone holding a “flambeau/flaring sword”? ARTWORKS GALLERY There is no main character. Everyone appears to be a passing extra, drifting in and out of a scene with a disorienting and unstable perspective: a shadow curled into a black hole, a tilting plank, an overturned table, a crooked ladder, or a car flipped upside down. Everything accumulates like raw data awaiting a long-form fictional narrative—or possibly a draft storyboard for a serial drama that cycles through a maze of intertwined events and plot turns. Surprisingly, it is precisely through these scattered and chaotic bits that we see glimpses of a whole generation's silent struggles, exposing shards of a collective memory about what was once an "unwilling promised land." Though it was a destination no one opted for and few could avoid, as if exiled and deprived of memories of a lost home, there is yet hope for a new homeland. A quirk of fate underlines the prospect of a whole new belonging?! Alongside a series of dzo paper drawings, this open studio also presents “99% Tetris Game | the cold war is over… almost,” an interactive video game work by Lê Đ.Chunh. Tetris (Тетрис) , the iconic puzzle game where tetromino blocks (composed of 4 squares) fall from the “sky,” was created in 1984 by Soviet engineer Alexey Pajitnov. It became the very first video game exported from the Soviet Union—unexpectedly becoming a global phenomenon, especially after reaching American players through Nintendo’s Game Boy. Lê Đ.Chunh, too, grew up with memories of handheld gaming consoles and sibling rivalries over playtime. Borrowing the 1988 U.S. marketing slogan for Tetris—“The Cold War is over... almost”—the artist has created his own absurdist version of the game. In place of clean geometric blocks, he uses fragments from daily life: hoes, sickles, sandbags, cattle, plants, pots, rubber sandals, silhouettes of residents… all cut from photographs he captured around the stone walls of the old tea factory. Like in Tetris, the pieces fall into a fixed screen; the player can rotate or move them sideways, but because there’s no unifying geometry, they never quite align. There is no neat fit, no completed lines, and no score. The fragments simply pile up—off-kilter and unresolved—in a system of illogical self-cancellation. The work gently links personal memory with broader historical shifts—from a transforming local landscape to the distant echoes of a crumbling world order—not to interrogate or conclude, but to propose a wry scenario: when pieces never fit, how long can the game go on—and for what reason? ____________________ Stubborn and still—the stone wall never yielded, never crumbled, nor could it be torn down, despite the ravages of war and the churn of time. Once, it was merely a forgotten colonial remnant, too obscure for anyone to name or trace. And yet, from its silence, a roof was raised, a well was dug, and a childhood was tenderly nurtured. “Following the stone wall,” thus, to Lê Đ.Chunh, is no longer just a gesture of personal remembrance but perhaps a long journey through overlapping strata of memory, tracing around the ruptures of history—an undiscovered zone that opens up to endless possibilities and re-imagination. OPENING NIGHT See more about artist(s)

Nguyễn Mạnh HùngA solo exhibition by NGUYỄN MẠNH HÙNG 06.07 - 06.08.2018 The Age After Divinity - August 6, 2018 July 6, 2018 Nguyễn Mạnh Hùng ‘The Age After Divinity' displays a series of new works by Hanoi-born surrealist, Nguyễn Mạnh Hùng, whose playful, irony-laden work has been turning heads in the contemporary art scene of Vietnam. Depicting activities and events of daily life in an absurd world, this series of oil and water colour paintings presents immersive environments with droll juxtapositions that cleverly allude to cultural realities, social conflicts, the complexities of civic development and individual responsibility in Vietnam today. Focusing on the visual relationships of disjointed elements and unusual scales, with 'The Age After Divinity', Hung has conveyed his wry sense of humour and boldly brought audiences to a world in which everything is made bare through his biting irony. *This event is part of Manzi’s art programme supported by the Danish Embassy ARTWORKS GALLERY ARTIST STATEMENT --- "Once upon a time, back in the ancient days, divine beings used to dwell in the human realm, living amongst mortals under the guise of various living creatures. Despite this, man hardly came across a deity often, and even in the case of an actual encounter, it was not at all obvious and man remained unaware. In that ancient time, one land had undergone severe toils of war. Luckily, the Emperor of that land, with the help of many divinities, finally won over the invaders and revived the kingdom. In gratitude of the divine graces who had assisted him, the Emperor decreed that the divinities would be worshipped with the title ‘Hộ Quốc Thánh’ (‘Sacred Guardian of the Empire’ or ‘Empire’s Patron Saint’) and a permanent privilege of worship and adoration would be extendedto all generations of the divinities’ offspring. Everyone in the kingdom rejoiced and swore to comply. Many years passed, the divinities, one after another, deserted the human realm, left behind their positions and were succeeded by their descendants. Although these descendants of divinities were unfortunately not divinities. Closely as they resembled their sacred ancestors in outer appearance, in the inner essence, they did not in fact possess any extraordinary power. However the decree had been passed, the subjects complied and the edict of the First Emperor continued to be honoured, the people of this kingdom continued worshipping and serving all descendants of the divinities as solemnly and respectfully as before. Like ordinary people, not divine beings, with banal mindset like any other mere mortals on earth, the descendants of divinities also surrendered to all kinds of passions, lusts and were subject to all earthly vices and sufferings. This series of drawings presents activities and events of daily life indicating how people of that land may have interacted and dealt with descendants of the divinities. Nguyen Manh Hung – June 2018 OPENING NIGHT See more about artist(s)

Nguyễn Trần NamA solo exhibition by NGUYỄN TRẦN NAM 06.01 - 26.01.2014 THE BROKEN CHAPTERS - January 26, 2014 January 6, 2014 Nguyễn Trần Nam The exhibition space, bare and colorless. A video of a bullet ripping through the air, looped and muted. Texts describing the very moment before, during and after one is executed, detailed and handwritten. A home video of a father and son bonding moment, found and slowed down. A group photograph of young men, smiling and almost washed out. A conversations between a father and his son, absurd and mounted on the walls. These are part of THE BROKEN CHAPTHERS, a showcase of new artworks by Nguyen Tran Nam taking place at manzi art space from 06 to 26 January 2014. Rooted in the stories of his own, but reaching out to tell the stories of others, Nam’s work is personal yet universal, dealing with themes such as violence, death and the father and son relationship. Using the notion of war as a backdrop, Nam offers a perspective on how ideologies and beliefs could shape a generation’s identity and perception, whilst demonstrating the gaps, the missing pieces and the powerful bonds between one generation and another, regardless of how isolated or far-removed they are – or desire to be – from each other. With a recurring interest in war novels and film, and inspired by his father’s experiences as a military engineer during the Vietnam-America war and later as a propaganda painter, the artist took on the role of both a memory excavator and a fiction storyteller, weaving real-life details with made-up stories to form an imaginary realm unbound by truth, place or time. This exhibition is supported by the Prince Claus Fund ARTWORKS GALLERY WHOLE AGAIN An exhibition review by curator Bill Nguyen A collection of writings, videos and discovered objects, Nguyen Tran Nam’s new body of work – THE BROKEN CHAPTERS is personal yet universal, rooted in the stories of his own, but reaching out to tell the stories of others, dealing with themes such as violence, death and the father and son relationship. Using the notion of war as a backdrop, Nam offers a perspective on how ideologies and beliefs shape a generation’s identity and perception, whilst demonstrating the gaps, the missing pieces and the powerful bonds between one generation and another, regardless of how isolated or far-removed they are – or desire to be – from each other. With a recurring interest in war novels and film, and inspired by his father’s experiences as a military engineer during the Vietnam-American war and later as a propaganda painter, the artist took on the role of both a memory excavator and a fiction writer, weaving real-life details with made-up stories to form an imaginary realm unbound by truth, place or time. Arranged sporadically on the two floors of the exhibition space like chapters from a distorted novel, each separate work is part of a larger narrative that asks the viewer to avoid leisurely contemplation, and invites them to go out of their usual way in order to figure their own story and relationship with the works. Dry to the point of challenging, the visual elements seem to have been intentionally watered down in order to amplify the work’s content and context. The show-opener is a pixilated home video, which looks as if it has been downloaded off one’s personal account on Youtube or Facebook, slowed down and played continuously on a monitor placed on the floor. Depicting a shooting lesson between a father and his little son, the video shows an odd male and father/son bonding moment - deeply affectionate, yet at the same time, violently dysfunctional. The importance of fathers spending time with their sons is immense; and the relationship a boy has with his father greatly shapes the man he will become in the future. What will become of this boy? A killing-machine? Or a future provider of protection and safety? Could this act of learning how to fire a gun be considered a fundamental rite of passage from boyhood to manhood? Or a form of child abuse?What does this tell us about our values and our cultures? Should gun shooting, or to be more exact - violence, be accepted as a solution during this politically unstable time? Or could too much freedom and democracy prove to be a problem? Spanning the main walls and resembling official documents or awards certificates, the second work consists of thirteen handwritten texts and an old photograph, all pristinely framed and neatly hung in a straight line. On closer inspection, a chill runs down our spines as we realize what our eyes are reading. All of the thirteen extracts of texts recount the very moment before, during and after one is executed – those fleeting seconds between life and the end of it. Adopting multiple styles of writings - sometimes descriptive and poetic, others incomplete and long-winded, the texts are both haunted and haunting, telling tales of thirteen deaths, thirteen possible killing methods, and thirteen different viewpoints. From those who perform the ultimate act, those who partake in the process, to those who lie at the receiving end of death; from wet tropical forests with muddy ponds, to desolate landscape where nothing survives but the ranging sun, we get the sense that the characters are involved a battle, a war. And it could be any battle, any war, at any place and any time; it could be happening right now, or was it hundreds of years ago, or it may occur at some point in the future. Whether it is a war of loss or victory, a battle of gore or glory, it ultimately all ends with fatality. Someone must die– be they a hero or a villain, be they one of “us” or one of “them”. All of these deaths go back to the starting point, where the small washed out black and white photograph of a group of young men is hung. Who are they? Friends? Colleagues? Comrades? Or is it more accurate to ask, who were they? There is more confusion: there are only eleven men in the photograph; where are the other two? Why are they missing? Could one of them be the protagonist in the painting beside it? The only painting in the show, this is the single artwork and material that can be considered traditional, and probably the closet thing to Nam’s training as a painter. Modest in size and minimal in its use of colors, the painting is oddly composited and coldly toned. With the empty center painted in black, the scene is divided into two parts: at the top a cloud is floating by, or maybe frozen still; down at the bottom a man, or maybe a woman, is lying, half of the face buried in green water, the other half looking straight at us, unemotional, or maybe contented. As we are absorbed in the painting’s strangeness and gloom, the same character and scenery - or maybe their doppelgangers – appear in perhaps the second part of the work, a video located upstairs. Slowly, the immobile moves; quietly, the dead breathes; peculiarly, silence is replaced by the last sounds of a living human being. As the painting comes alive and drips of blood fall out of the character’s mouth, an all-encompassing uncanny sensation begins to resonate inside our body and throughout the space. We feel horrified and disoriented, but also energized and compelled by the disturbance and mystery of what we are witnessing: a person approaching death. How did he die? Was he murdered? Or did he commit suicide? How did his story unfold? These questions continue to linger in our minds, only to be confronted by the emptiness apparent in the last room. On one wall is a looped video projection of a bullet ripping through the air. Dark and sinister, echoing the show’s subject matters, these two instruments of death – the gun and the bullet – are referenced all the way through: each bullet fired in the opening video is filled with pride and joy; technical drawings of gun parts faintly decorate the paper onto which the thirteen deaths are written; a gunshot probably killed the protagonist in the painting-video duo piece; a bullet wound is debated between a father and his son in the text-based wall piece as part of the last work in this room. Written in an instinctive and stream-of-consciousness manner, the conversation surrounds the notions of victory, reason and value; and alludes to the differences and struggles between the father and the son, the old and the new, the emotionally imbalanced and the cold-heartedly rational. Will these two opposing worlds ever meet? Could their relationship, one connected by blood, ever help resolve the disharmony? With THE BROKEN CHAPTERS , Nguyen Tran Nam attempts to walk away from the parameters of the visual to explore a territory entirely different to what he knows: the practice of writing. Why the change? It maybe that writing is the more powerful way to convey a cause, spread an idea and inspire hope; or that it better achives the social and political functions we normally expect of art; or that artists simply wish to expand the scope of their practice. Either way, Nam needs to go through this experimentation, to dive into the darkness in order to see the light. Some may say the final outcome is questionable and doubtful, others naive and unfinished. But there is one thing we can’t deny of Nam: that anything he has written and created, flows from that place - from the heart of an artist; from the heart of a son; from the heart of someone broken, wounded and lost. It is at this very instant that we connect with him, because at one point or another, we have all been broken, wounded and lost. And all we ever wanted was the impossible: to be whole again. OPENING NIGHT See more about artist(s)

Tạ Huy Longan open studio by Tạ Huy Long My Zootopia - March 1, 2026 December 28, 2025 Tạ Huy Long Timed with the gentle cold of late winter and the festive anticipation of the year’s end, Manzi gladly presents My Zootopia , an open studio by Ta Huy Long . The exhibition space is transformed into a vivid, story-filled world—arched gateways, narrative paintings, glowing glass objects, and handcrafted furniture shaped like creatures from myth and memory. Known to many as a celebrated book illustrator, Ta Huy Long here unveils a rare, comprehensive view of his creative universe, patiently built over more than twenty years. Paintings, watercolors, original book sketches, functional furniture, and the artist’s own working desk come together in one space, revealing a continuous movement of his creative practice between drawing and object, imagination and study of material. Characters once living on paper—crickets, fish, horses, toads—gradually demand physical bodies. They reappear as trunks, cabinets, lamps, and mobile chests made from wood, leather, metal, and glass—objects designed not only to be seen, but to be used, touched, and worn by time. Through daily life, these works accumulate memory and quietly continue their stories. At the far end of My Zootopia , another narrative opens. Inspired by the life and legacy of Alexandre Yersin —scientist, explorer, and quiet visionary—Ta Huy Long turns to a different kind of storytelling. Moving beyond illustration, he develops The Whale Song , a graphic novel authored and drawn by himself, blending historical research with imagination and myth. This journey continues into three-dimensional form: illuminated chest covered with historical maps and a luminous whale crafted with stained glass where Yersin’s voyages merge with coastal legends and seafaring dreams. My Zootopia is shaped by a delicate balance between childlike wonder and rigorous craftsmanship. It is not a finished fantasy, but an inhabitable world—solid, tactile, and open-ended. As Glenn Gould once wrote, “The purpose of art is not the release of a momentary ejection of adrenaline but the gradual, lifelong construction of a state of wonder and serenity.” This is the spirit that animates Ta Huy Long’s Zootopia: a world that endures, and an on-going adventure continues to unfold. ARTWORKS GALLERY OPENING NIGHT See more about artist(s)

Nguyễn Huy An, Lại Thị Diệu Hà, Nguyễn Trần Nam, Nguyễn Văn Phúc, Nguyễn Trinh Thi & Nguyễn Văn Thủyan open studio simultaneously at two different spaces of manzi More than Human #1 - March 19, 2023 February 23, 2023 Nguyễn Huy An, Lại Thị Diệu Hà, Nguyễn Trần Nam, Nguyễn Văn Phúc, Nguyễn Trinh Thi & Nguyễn Văn Thủy A shoe A ladder A lightning strike Malevich Hydra The Sound Hòn non bộ (miniature landscape) A fleeting outline scribbled down, that outline of a Story not yet to be fully-formed just awaiting to be unveiled, but rather of the happenings to be encountered and recorded. Throughout over three weeks, six artists (working in different disciplines: visual arts, performance art, sound & moving images) will collaborate together in a series of “symbiotic experiments”, an open studio simultaneously at two different spaces of manzi: MORE THAN HUMAN #1: The Understories ► Participating artists: Nguyễn Huy An, Lại Thị Diệu Hà, Nguyễn Trần Nam, Nguyễn Văn Phúc, Nguyễn Trinh Thi & Nguyễn Văn Thủy ► Opening party: 6.30 PM Thursday, 23 February, 2023 ► Open studio: 11.00 AM - 07.00 PM (Wednesday - Sunday) until 19 March 2023 ► Venues: the front yard of manzi art space - 14 Phan Huy Ích, Ba Đình, Hà Nội & manzi exhibition space - no.2 ngõ Hàng Bún, Ba Đình, Hà Nội Provoked by an infinite conundrum about More-Than-Human World, ‘The Understories’ simulates a site-specific staging in which many elements/characters would be involved; they can appear suddenly or quietly withdraw, with unexpected movements and mise en scène: There is Light and Darkness Sound and Silence Natural beings and Man-made Objects Remembrance of things past Promise of things that just begin There are Handcrafts along Machines The Original and Imitation Materiality and Dematerialization Flesh and Spirit Divine and Earthly Then Decaying… Such complex and multivalent ‘entities’ are inextricably woven in the same ‘habitat’, this staging constructs a loose representation of an ECOSYSTEM. For three weeks’ duration, ‘The Understories’ will transform through four ‘Phases’ (or we can call them ‘Rhythms’ as in Biology / ‘Acts’ as in a Theatre / ‘Chapters’ as in a Story), each lasts for 4 - 5 days. As the time passed, the performance of each artist, their body of works would be gradually formed - adjusted/ sustained- dissipated as if regulated by a general principle that’s comparable to the ’interspecies collaboration / competition’ practice in the natural ecosystem. We will see, hear, and feel them - the 'beings' of 'The Understories' breathing, growing, staying alert to their surroundings, responding to stimuli: They do not only interact with each other (like with their neighboring species) but also react with internal factors of the exhibition space (their living conditions), as well as with the audience - external stimuli (or invaders of their environment); not to mention that they also respond to the flow of time. However, just as a draft script is still open to adaptations and improvisation, ‘The Understories’ has a huge potential for unusual twists and spontaneous turns because conflict is inherent in all forms of systematization, no matter if it's a natural or social structure. In such unavoidable collisions between the dynamic parts and the static whole, between the free will of individuals and the intrinsic limits of collective action, the Climax (of this whole staging) will emerge. Then what to be revealed in the aftermath of all those more-than-human experiences: ‘Everything has a Spirit’ (in theory of animalism) or ‘Everything is transient’ (in Buddhism and Taoism). At the end of all these rhythms, what’s to come: A state of rest in the perfect & eternal equilibrium? Or a point of extinction signaling an upcoming phase of post-apocalyptic rebirth? *During the course of the open studio, there will be a series of various events including film screenings, discussions and artist’s talks. 'More than human' #1 is organized by Hanoi Doclab and Manzi with the support of the Prince Claus Fund. ARTWORKS GALLERY OPENING NIGHT See more about artist(s)