Thu Van Tran, Fahrenheit 451

View of the exhibition Thu Van Tran exhibition "Fahrenheit 451", Bétonsalon - Center for Art and Research, Paris, 2009

HOMME LIVRE - HOMME LIBRE
A solo show by Thu Van Tran, including col­lab­o­ra­tions with Chi Waï Ng and Didier Rittener

The pro­ject is to adapt the sus­pense novel, Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury (1953), into an exhi­bi­tion. This is an endeavor to re-tran­scribe the nar­ra­tive into expe­ri­ence and to explore its prin­ciple con­cerns. In a future society where it is for­bidden to read, where books are burnt once they are dis­cov­ered, people who want to save them learn them by heart. To take this as fact, the con­fronta­tion between cen­sor­ship and resis­tance, the incar­na­tion of a visionary aes­thetic and the use of lan­guage as a weapon, will be mate­ri­alised within the works pro­posed in this exhi­bi­tion.

To hide a book and to mem­o­rize its con­tents when there are no other pos­sible for­mats; to keep the words as a form of sur­vival and to use their trans­mittal to found a future col­lec­tive – these are the almost hope­less themes of Fahrenheit 451. The adap­ta­tion is moti­vated by this dra­matic sub­ject with its heroic dimen­sion whose polit­ical con­tent holds a prophecy of a world without freedom or free will, and which directly evokes cer­tain his­toric events, wars and book burn­ings.

View of the Thu Van Tran exhibition "Fahrenheit 451" with Thu Van Tran, Germination, 2009. Bétonsalon - Center for Art and Research, Paris, 2009.

This interest in science fic­tion for Thu Van Tran is par­tic­ular to this adap­ta­tion. Her atten­tion is focused on the prin­cipal char­ac­ter­istic of the genre: antic­i­pa­tion. It recon­structs the expe­ri­ence of our pre­sent as already past. This pro­cess demands us to under­stand our pre­sent as the his­tory of things still to come, being told to us. In this way, aware of the links to fact, the artist will attempt to invest the space of the exhi­bi­tion with notions of dura­tion and origin by lending it a format wherein these ideas can take form.

For this pro­ject the artist has invited the inter­ven­tion of a graphic designer orig­i­nally from Hong Kong, Chi Waï Ng. Trusting in him the mate­ri­al­iza­tion of a visual and nar­ra­tive iden­tity. Swiss Artist Didier Rittener has been engaged to col­lab­o­rate around the ques­tion of book burning. During the exhi­bi­tion there will be a pro­gram of per­for­mances and debates con­ducted around the theme of the power of lan­guage.

The exhi­bi­tion will start with a pho­netic pre­lude and will evolve over the seven fol­lowing chap­ters: CH 1-Existing hidden, CH 2-Book burning, CH 3-The dan­de­lion or the destruc­tive blood­hound?, CH 4-Immediate hap­pi­ness, CH 5 -Germination, CH 6-The imag­i­na­tion won’t give in, CH 7-The escape.