To leave, to live, then to return once again. How do we make sense of the newly unfamiliar? Expectations, hesitations, and new contemplations unfurl and transform prior to, during, and upon diasporic people’s returns to their homelands after forced and/or voluntary migration. Alone, only in flesh is a site-specific, collaborative meditation on three diasporic artists’ experiences in and between lands and waters, and how those experiences shape untranslatable connections to home and identity.
In this exhibition, Antonius-Tín Bui, Theresa-Xuan Bui, and MIZU meld the language of altars—spaces of presence, transcendence, and transmission—with the liminality of the shifting elevator and welcome all to commune with the unknown. Through a combination of spoken word poetry, experimental cello, traditional Vietnamese áo dài (garments), Southeast Asian home goods, and Asian snacks, the installation engages all five senses—aural, visual, haptic, olfactory, and gustatory.
Opening on Lunar New Year and stretching across several significant dates, including the anniversary of the Fall of Saigon, this installation will continually evolve. The artists will return to Alone, only in flesh after visits to Vietnam and Japan and make new offerings reflecting their ever-changing relationships to their motherlands. In this way, the expanding exhibition invites visitors to immerse themselves in it each time anew.
Alone, only in flesh is anchored by the song “Sunrise” by Gus Dapperton, featuring the award-winning Vietnamese American poet and novelist Ocean Vuong, an excerpt of which reads:
When the light comes on
And through every street
The city is doused pink
By the dust of crushed hours
And you are alone only in flesh
And the ghosts you’ve loved walk with you here
On the edge of memory
When you are free only for the length of your name held in my mouth
And the dawn coming off the windows turns our hands blood red
And we are children again running heart-first towards the end of laughter
How strong will we be? How brave?
How every syllable alive?
No one told us we were good
But we were good
In possession of the cell’s flowering
As it vanishes inside all the yesterdays behind us
How can we not jump?
Here at the end, where each of your burning wings is finally made of music.
Antonius-Tín Bui and Theresa-Xuan Bui (seated, center) perform in Elevator Music 48: Alone, only in flesh, Tang Teaching Museum, 2024, photo by Megan Mumford
The artists gave visitors poems in red envelopes, in the spirit of Lunar New Year, and asked them to write an offering in return, which they could leave on the altar outside the exhibition.
as if our hands could hold the weight of promise, Tang Teaching Museum, April 17, 2024, photo by Megan Mumford
The artists activated the Tang’s elevator and staircase with cello, improvisational movement, spoken word poetry, and audience interaction with traditional Vietnamese garments (áo dài). In this way, the audience joined the diasporic artists on a migration embodying the hesitations, expectations, and contemplations of returning home.
Performers: MIZU, Theresa-Xuan Bui, Antonius-Tín Bui, Thanh Bui, and Glenna Yu.
