IMAGE: James Nguyen, “STREET VENDOR PERMIT CAP PROTESTS ON WALL STREET, 2016”
Screenshot, Single channel moving image,
13:27min.
Photo courtesy James Nguyen, 2016

New Solutions, Enduring Problems

James Nguyen

Art Spiegelman describes how Americans think of themselves as “wide-eyed innocents with perpetually renewing hymens,” primed to be broken again and again. This perverse attraction to a forgetful virginity seems pretty relevant beyond America. What are the main drivers of our collective amnesia? Does a clean slate help us to skim over trauma for resilience?

By asking questions as to who and what has been remembered, memorialised and conveniently obscured, this exhibition may help to clarify how one might synthesise a brand new hymen.

James Nguyen is a Sydney-based artist who makes art in order to talk endlessly about it. His output ranges from the static to the moving image. Nguyen has studied at the National Art School, and the Sydney College of the Arts. He has spent the last year making collaborative documentaries at Uniondocs in New York through the support of the Anne and Gordon Samstag Scholarship.

MOP Projects is supported by the NSW Government through Arts NSW

.