28 pieces of blind-embossing with tint base on golden Dó paper
2023

From Meghan Considine for the exhibition to see oneself at a distance at MASS MoCA: “Since 2014, Hương Ngô has investigated the gap-ridden archives of Nguyên Thị Minh Khai (1910-1941), a lionized martyr of the Vietnamese Communist Party. Here Ngô reproduces and reaffirms a pseudonymous anti-fascist political tract attributed to Minh Khai, Vấn đề Phụ Nữ (1938), which can be translated as "The Question of Women." or "The Problem of Women." The text explores the role of women and motherhood throughout feudal times in Asia to the then-present colonial age and Confucian society. It takes an anti-Fascist stance, attempting to balance calls for equality with the rise of the popular front and thereby navigating tricky waters of class-based versus gender-based identities and their corresponding priorities. Ngô reproduces the entirety of Vấn đề Phụ Nữ in its original language, refusing to translate for non-Vietnamese-speaking audiences. This illegibility acknowledges and aims to rectify the fact that, in her lifetime, Minh Khai was denied what postcolonial theorist Édouard Glissant called "the right to opacity," as her movements were heavily tracked by French colonial surveillance. The laborious act of pressing text into fibrous paper affords Ngô intimacy with both Minh Khai and the material histories embedded in this golden surface: do paper handmade by the Hanoi-based Zó Project, which uplifts traditional papermaking practices. Dó paper has been sustainably crafted from the bark of Northern Vietnamese rhamnoneuron balansae trees since the third century. Crucially, Ngô elevates the text and its author's radical legacy: because of its inherent durability and beauty, dó paper has historically been reserved for special purposes such as official record keeping.”