10.000 years in a moment, 2025 - detail
“Fossils are the preserved remains, or traces of remains, of ancient organisms. Fossils are not the remains of the organism itself! They are rocks.
… Preserved remains become fossils if they reach an age of about 10,000 years.”
National Geographic
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“Fossilization does not take thousands or millions of years, but is most likely to occur in catastrophic conditions such as would have existed during the Genesis Flood.”
Raúl Esperante
Geoscience Research Institute
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Above are the brief definitions of fossils from the Journal of the National Geographic Society of America, and a statement by an author in an independent research paper discussing the origin and conditions for fossil formation, a topic that remains controversial in science until today.
For me, the existence of an organism implies the existence of internal emotions, memories, and impulses encapsulated or expressed by that being. The possibility that fossils can be forcefully formed under abnormally harsh conditions reminds me of such a process in the human mind. Ten thousand years is indeed a very long time, but some moments seem to last as long, such as the experience of pain, or the memory of pain.
The truth is, without pandemics or crises, the existence of pain and suffering can never be erased in our world, with or without us knowing. Still, at this time of our life, the internet and global communication are creating a canvas that displays other people's stories, and pain in every layer. However, the other side of being able to "see" is that there's always a new layer of color applied to that canvas as time passes, and the old stories that once made our hearts crumble with sadness gradually have to give way to the new events, new waves of compassion, or a new way of emotional soothing we find for ourselves when things starting to become too hard to take.
This is not a project with an aim for the ambition of describing pain, for in my opinion, pain is such a universal and diverse thing that it is impossible to be described by someone with limited experience like myself, and it is also a thing so personal that an outsider should not express it. This project was created with the urge to capture the fact that pain might only be a bitter taste, a touch of compassion for outsiders, but it is always an emotional substance that seems indestructible to the ones who were forced to experience it, something that makes human feel so eternal that it seems to have been formed by even ten thousand years, without needing that much amount of time; because sometimes, some fleeting developments of life can be that cruel to the emotions of a few individuals.
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“ It's not because you don't understand but you can't feel what I feel. You can sympathize, understand, show compassion. But feel my pain? No. You suffer and so do I. I understand you. You comprehend my pain, but you can't feel it”
‘Taste of the cherry’ (1997) – Abbas Kiarostami
‘10,000 years in a moment’
120 x 160 cm
Acrylic paint, gold leaf, silver leaf on scallop paper mounted on canvas.
2025
‘10,000 years in a moment’, 2025 - detail
‘10,000 years in a moment’, 2025 - detail
‘One Bag Of Food’
120 x 140 cm
Acrylic paint, gold leaf on scallop paper mounted on canvas.
2025
Không cần đến 1 vạn năm
“Hóa thạch là những phần còn lại được bảo tồn hay còn gọi là dấu vết của các sinh vật cổ đại. Hóa thạch không phải là phần còn lại của chính sinh vật! Chúng là những tảng đá.
… Những phần còn lại được bảo quản sẽ trở thành hóa thạch nếu chúng đạt độ tuổi khoảng 10.000 năm ”.
National Geographic
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“Quá trình hóa thạch không mất hàng nghìn hoặc hàng triệu năm, mà rất có thể xảy ra trong những điều kiện thảm khốc như đã từng tồn tại trong trận Đại hồng thủy.”
Raúl Esperante
Geoscience Research Institute
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Trên đây là đôi dòng vắn tắt định nghĩa về hóa thạch của Tạp chí Hội Địa lý Quốc gia Hoa Kỳ , và phát biểu của một tác giả trong bài nghiên cứu thảo luận về nguồn gốc và các điều kiện để hình thành hóa thạch, điều mà cho đến giờ vẫn còn gây tranh cãi trong khoa học.
Đối với tôi, việc từng có sự tồn tại của một sinh vật hàm chứa việc đã từng tồn tại những cảm xúc, ký ức, xung động nội tại được gói gọn hoặc bộc lộ ra bởi sinh vật ấy. Khả năng một vài hóa thạch có thể bị cưỡng ép hình thành dưới các điều kiện ngoại cảnh nghiệt ngã hơn bình thường khiến tôi liên tưởng đến quá trình đó trong tâm trí con người. Một vạn năm dài đằng đẵng, nhưng có những khoảnh khắc làm ta cảm giác nó trải dài đến một vạn năm, chẳng hạn như trải nghiệm về nỗi đau, hoặc là, ký ức về nỗi đau.
Sự thật là, không có những cơn đại dịch hoặc khủng hoảng thì rất nhiều nỗi đau vẫn đang tồn tại hàng ngày, có điều sự trao đổi thông tin toàn cầu ngày nay như một tấm toan cho ta cơ hội nhìn thấy rõ hơn về lớp màu nỗi đau của những người khác. Tuy nhiên, mặt trái của việc “được thấy” là sẽ luôn có một lớp màu mới được phết lên toan, và những câu chuyện cũ từng làm tim ta thắt lại cũng dần phải nhường chỗ cho những câu chuyện mới, những đợt trắc ẩn mới, hoặc một sự xoa dịu mới.
Đây không phải là một dự án diễn tả nỗi đau, bởi vì theo tôi, nỗi đau là một thứ phổ biến và đa dạng đến mức không thể được diễn tả bởi một người có trải nghiệm hạn hẹp như tôi, mà cũng là một thứ mang tính cá nhân nặng đến mức nó không nên được diễn tả bởi một người ngoài cuộc. Dự án này được tạo ra với thôi thúc lưu giữ cách mà nỗi đau chỉ là một vị đắng, một cơn động lòng trắc ẩn đối với người ngoài cuộc, nhưng nó luôn là một vật chất cảm xúc dường như không thể phân hủy được với người buộc phải trải nghiệm; là một thứ vĩnh cửu đến mức dường như được hình thành bởi cả vạn năm, mà lại không hề cần đến 1 vạn năm, bởi đôi lúc, những diễn biến thoáng chốc của cuộc sống có thể nghiệt ngã với cảm xúc của một vài con người đến như vậy.
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“Nếu tôi nói cậu sẽ không hiểu, không phải vì cậu không hiểu được, mà cậu không cảm nhận được thứ tôi đang cảm nhận. Cậu có thể hiểu, có thể thông cảm, thể hiện lòng trắc ẩn… Nhưng cảm thấy nỗi đau của tôi? Đó là điều không thể”.
Taste of the cherry (1997) – Abbas Kiarostami
‘Không cần đến 1 vạn năm’, một dự án của Mifa - 2025
‘You died on a day full of sunlight’
Acrylic paint, gold leaf on scallop paper mounted on canvas
50 x 70 cm
painting, installation (2025)
In 2021, a heartbreaking incident happened in Vietnam. And like many other painful events during the time of Covid-19, it was like a stone falling into a lake, creating a few ripples for those who were paying attention, then sinking without leaving a trace.
A poor couple tried to carry their 15 dogs on two old motorbikes from Saigon to Cà Mau to escape the pandemic. Images of their journey brought joy to many animal lovers, or simply to those who could feel compassion for someone trying their best for what they love. When they arrived at a local medical station in Cà Mau in the hope that the journey would finally become less exhausting because they had reached the end, they were placed in quarantine, and their 15 dogs were killed. It is important to note that this was an independent decision made by the head of the local commune health station in that area and not an official policy of the Vietnamese government at the time. There was no formal directive issued by the authorities regarding such an action. The official statement announced that the dogs were culled and incinerated as a disease control measure. I call it a massacre in cold blood. Because it was not only about 15 dogs being killed. It was also about the indifference of people who trample on the effort, the hope, and the small happiness of others, simply because they can. I read that news with horror and rage at such cruelty, and with a quiet powerlessness in knowing that this small piece of news, no matter how much noise it caused on the day it was announced, would be forgotten in about a week. The pain and the trauma, however, may never be forgotten by the ones who had to endure it - yet for others, it would remain just another “news story” among countless pieces of news read every day. That small story I read on my phone screen, with the grief and anger I will never forget, on a quiet evening in quarantine in 2021, was the reason I created the project “10.000 years in a moment”.
‘You died on a day full of sunlight’ (archive work, part of installation)
2025
O Father, why hast thou forsaken me?
I believe that people can be cruel so easily because they do not have to understand the pain of the one who suffers from that cruelty. If there are two animals that have accompanied human life throughout history, they are perhaps dogs and horses. Even so, the nature of the interaction between humans and each species is very different.
I think dogs are easily associated with obedience, attachment, and the safety of unconditional love. Dogs are compliance in the hunting field, warmth and trust at home, loyalty through every change and misfortune.
Horses, on the other hand, require caution in approaching and caring for them. There is hesitation before their strength, and violence in the process of taming and forcing obedience. To make a horse run, people raise the whip, press their heels into its belly, pull on the reins. At the same time, to truly bond with a horse and make it listen, the caretaker must groom it by hand, feed it, spend time with it. Before modern transportation, horses were almost one of the key forces in the development of nations, in travel, agriculture, warfare, and trade. People tamed them for their usefulness and also because they feared such strength.
From my perspective, the relationship between rider and horse is an abusive one, where a beautiful and powerful being is disciplined and repressed in order to serve someone weaker, yet more cunning, someone who knows how to establish authority. No amount of care or closeness can truly make up for the whips and the violence a horse endures in serving humans.
I cannot remember when I began collecting news articles and stories about horses during the development of this project. The first artwork about horses in this series was created from the combination of two documents: an archaeological report about the excavation of a decapitated horse buried alongside its owner in Germany; and the story of Nietzsche’s horse, also known as the Horse of Turin.
The irony and the bitterness become clear when placing these two stories side by side: a horse decapitated for unknown reasons and buried alongside its owner, and a man who broke down while trying to protect a stranger’s horse from the abuse of its owner.
Nietzsche, in my opinion, may have stepped into the pain of another being in that moment. And his descent into madness for the rest of his life became, to me, a symbol of how he formed an emotional fossil from a pain that was not originally his, and remained inside that fossil for the rest of his days, unable, or perhaps unwilling, to step out of it.
‘The Pain Of Others’
80 x 120 cm
Acrylic paint on scallop paper mounted on canvas.
2025
In contrast to that extreme form of empathy stands the clearest image of what I call an “emotional fossil” in this project: the skeleton of a decapitated horse.
And at that point in history, when the guillotine had not yet been invented, and the sharpest swords were a privilege reserved by executioners to grant humans a quick death, what was given to this horse was perhaps an axe, and a slow death, delivered blow by blunt blow.
Installation from ‘O Father, why hast thou forsaken me?’
Axe, log, red thread
2025
The traumatizing pain and the despair a living being might feel in that situation made me think of the cry that Jesus addressed to God at the moment of His crucifixion. I chose a version of that lament that is not entirely official or exact, as a quiet gesture of irony in placing the image of a decapitated horse beside the sacrifice of Christ, because to me, both are “a pure, sinless soul.” And if God is the Father of Jesus, then the God/“Father” in the small and limited life of this horse was perhaps its owner - the one who made it serve under the lash, and for whom the horse might be ultimately put to death beneath the blows of an axe.
In those moments of pain, panic, and confusion, did the lonely horse ever turn toward the image of its owner/the “father” in his mind, and silently cry, “O Father, why hast Thou forsaken me?”
‘O Father, why hast thou forsaken me?’
2025
Acrylic paint on scallop paper collage mounted on canvas, acrylic paint on canvas. (60 x 80cm)
Ceramic mounted on wooden frame. (60 x 80cm)
This project exists, because cruelty exists everywhere.
10.000 years in a moment - A project by Mifa, 2025