Have a good rest! (2024)
2024
30 x 60 x 180cm
Hand embroidered with used-to-be nomad clothes, fashion waste, Sơn-ta-lacquered leaf skeleton.
From the bustling fashion scenes of London and Hanoi to the serene path of solo travel spanning Iran to Timor-Leste, since 2016, I have been embracing the ethos of "Busy Living Slow." In a world of fast-paced art industry, I realized the resonance between my Busy Living Slow lifestyle and Karl Marx's ideologies of work and the timeless wisdom that lies in Sei Shonagon’s The Pillow Book. Have a Good Rest ! is my ode to this unrushed pace, reminding us of the power of rest as both rejuvenation and resistance. Lay your head on my pillow book, and rest as you protest.
Have a good rest! is also showed at Untitled Art Fair, Miami Brach 2024 at the Special Project Booth: Contain and Mend presented by Transmitter.
Means of Production Exhibition curated by Lunch Hour
at the Sheerly Touch-Ya and Shisanwu LLC warehouse, New York
Photos by Daniel Terna
Rest station at courtyard of Khu Tap The - Communal Residential Complex
Photos by Miên, Zel and Quế
Ngủ chưa? Ngủ trưa! | Nap yet? Lunch nap!
(Have a Good Rest! series)
2024
30x 60 x180 cm
Hand dyed silk, ramie, linen, viscose and metallic threads, sedge mat
Private collection, Seattle, US
Inspired by early Karl Marx's ideologies of work in 1844, the "Have a Good Rest!" series is a harmony of unhurried life, and unhurried rest, also the beginning of a journey of resuscitation and silent resistance to formulaic consumerism, corrosive capitalism that destroys vitality, and the unnatural pace of climate change influenced by human displacement.
In the past, with the agricultural life of early morning and late evening work, Vietnamese people had the habit of taking a nap at noon to avoid the heat. Today, taking a nap has become a way of life, a practice even in the workplace.
Nap yet? Lunch nap! is an invitation for you to try a 10-20 minute nap after lunch and experience your fresh mind after that.
Nap as you protest!
Exhibited at PRICK! Needlework Now Exhibition
Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology Gallery
Feb 2025
Melbourne, Australia
Photo by Christian Capurro
Have a good rest! (2025)
Hand-guided machine embroidered, found silk fabric, reflective fabric; silk, viscose and metalic threads, rattan mat.
Pillow: 1.5x 33 x 360cm
Have a Good Rest! (2025) extends this meditation into the social realm. Constructed as a textile “pillow book,” the work invites viewers to lie down, reclaiming rest as an act of protest. One side is embroidered with figures of people sleeping or reclining in public spaces—moments of unplanned, minimal leisure I observed during my travels. The other side, stitched with the word REST repeatedly on reflective fabric, flashes under light, transforming a passive state into a visual and political assertion. Referencing Sei Shōnagon’s Pillow Book and Vietnamese socialist propaganda such as “Yêu lao động” (“Love to Work”), I question whether contemporary societies still allow the body to rest without guilt or justification.
Image 01-06: by Liu Shujia at Koganecho Bazaar 2025
Image 07-10: courtesy of Courtyard HIROO in Solo exhibition "I teach my hand to sleep"