Cao Nguyen Huy Hoang
Sarah Kirchner
Hoang:
"It's been a tough week for me. Running around caught up to me and I got depressed again so these weeks wasn't great on the creative side.
What can I possibly say about freedom?
I am free to be free, yet robbed of the freedom to change.
I could say that I have the economic freedom of studying the things that I like, not to mention the bodily freedom to move around. Plus I could travel just to have the food that I like in a country where malnourishment is still a daily reality for many. All of this is afforded through the effort of decades of industrious workers who believed that they could build a better country for their children; me. Yet, how do you deal with the fact that you are growing apart from your country?
Underpinning every discourse of being human in Vietnam is economic growth. How could it not? My mom still remembers saving hot potatoes for emergency. How do you grow out of the thing that made you? Could you ever escape the sociopolitical work of your precedents to live the life that you deem to be moral? Would that choice even exist in a structure relying on your antithesis as basis for its sustenance?
I believe that one's ability to provide and grow economically should not underpin one's identity. I am deeply humbled by the labor of the people who take my trash, clean my streets, maintain my electricity, maintaining my life. What I can't do is paying them more. For in its massive movements, these essential aspects of life get trashed out to make way for studying English, thinking in Enlightenment terms. To the people running my country, artifical intelligence, more or less a statistical tool, is more intelligent--therefore worthwhile of economic consideration--than the people that run our lives.
This month is our election. I don't know the people I'm electing for. What they do, who backed them up, why they are here, and most of my friends don't too.
This set me on a slippery slope of fallacies to conclude that my condition is the conditions of everyone.
I usually turn to a long winding road and let it wind me down. Feeling the wind carrying away my ideas, I can't help but being stuck that I am burning fossil fuel on a machine designed to masculine standard of attraction on expansive locomotive projects that serves as stepping stones to dreams of unlimited instantaneous wealth for foreign real estate developers.
I stopped to loom over this dried up bundle of an unknown flower. It was beautiful even in its death. I felt free in this moment, being able to pivot myself to beauty even on the backdrop of existential threat."
What can I possibly say about freedom?
I am free to be free, yet robbed of the freedom to change.
I could say that I have the economic freedom of studying the things that I like, not to mention the bodily freedom to move around. Plus I could travel just to have the food that I like in a country where malnourishment is still a daily reality for many. All of this is afforded through the effort of decades of industrious workers who believed that they could build a better country for their children; me. Yet, how do you deal with the fact that you are growing apart from your country?
Underpinning every discourse of being human in Vietnam is economic growth. How could it not? My mom still remembers saving hot potatoes for emergency. How do you grow out of the thing that made you? Could you ever escape the sociopolitical work of your precedents to live the life that you deem to be moral? Would that choice even exist in a structure relying on your antithesis as basis for its sustenance?
I believe that one's ability to provide and grow economically should not underpin one's identity. I am deeply humbled by the labor of the people who take my trash, clean my streets, maintain my electricity, maintaining my life. What I can't do is paying them more. For in its massive movements, these essential aspects of life get trashed out to make way for studying English, thinking in Enlightenment terms. To the people running my country, artifical intelligence, more or less a statistical tool, is more intelligent--therefore worthwhile of economic consideration--than the people that run our lives.
This month is our election. I don't know the people I'm electing for. What they do, who backed them up, why they are here, and most of my friends don't too.
This set me on a slippery slope of fallacies to conclude that my condition is the conditions of everyone.
I usually turn to a long winding road and let it wind me down. Feeling the wind carrying away my ideas, I can't help but being stuck that I am burning fossil fuel on a machine designed to masculine standard of attraction on expansive locomotive projects that serves as stepping stones to dreams of unlimited instantaneous wealth for foreign real estate developers.
I stopped to loom over this dried up bundle of an unknown flower. It was beautiful even in its death. I felt free in this moment, being able to pivot myself to beauty even on the backdrop of existential threat."
Sarah:
"When I think about freedom these days the first thing that comes to mind is the absence of freedom.
The absence of freedom manifests physically in my body. I can feel a weight on my chest pushing me down, stopping me from moving.
I am stagnant, I sit, I lay, I nap, I sleep.
Freedom to me means being able to move without restrictions.
When I am free I move, I run, I climb, I spin, I swim, I float, I drive, I ride, I fly.
Freedom is precious and endangered.
We live in anxious times with the common denominator of fear.
Fear of a virus, fear of "the other", fear of losing your privileges, fear of shame, fear of change.
By acting out of fear we are taking away our fellows liberty and our own freedom. If we could unleash ourselves from the weight of judgement and prejudice we would ultimately all be liberated.
Freedom is the number one thing that counts or as the Beatles sang " One thing I can tell you is you got to be free"."
"When I think about freedom these days the first thing that comes to mind is the absence of freedom.
The absence of freedom manifests physically in my body. I can feel a weight on my chest pushing me down, stopping me from moving.
I am stagnant, I sit, I lay, I nap, I sleep.
Freedom to me means being able to move without restrictions.
When I am free I move, I run, I climb, I spin, I swim, I float, I drive, I ride, I fly.
Freedom is precious and endangered.
We live in anxious times with the common denominator of fear.
Fear of a virus, fear of "the other", fear of losing your privileges, fear of shame, fear of change.
By acting out of fear we are taking away our fellows liberty and our own freedom. If we could unleash ourselves from the weight of judgement and prejudice we would ultimately all be liberated.
Freedom is the number one thing that counts or as the Beatles sang " One thing I can tell you is you got to be free"."
"It feels like you are carrying a whole countries weight on your shoulders.
As I mentioned in my previous E-Mail freedom made me think about the weight we always carry with us. The weight makes it harder to move and ultimately limits us in our experience and expression of freedom.
This baggage can take up may forms. It can be self-doubt, trauma, individual guilt, national guilt, expectations, questions of identity and so on. It can also be the result of prejudice and judgement towards others because as soon as we take away someone's freedom I believe it also manifests as a loss of our own freedom.
For my picture this weeks I was looking for a way to show the concept of weight in connection with the ability to move.
I hope you can find ways over time for yourself to lift some of that weight that you are carrying."
As I mentioned in my previous E-Mail freedom made me think about the weight we always carry with us. The weight makes it harder to move and ultimately limits us in our experience and expression of freedom.
This baggage can take up may forms. It can be self-doubt, trauma, individual guilt, national guilt, expectations, questions of identity and so on. It can also be the result of prejudice and judgement towards others because as soon as we take away someone's freedom I believe it also manifests as a loss of our own freedom.
For my picture this weeks I was looking for a way to show the concept of weight in connection with the ability to move.
I hope you can find ways over time for yourself to lift some of that weight that you are carrying."