I don´t need to be born in this land to be touched by this artwork as I were a son of the thousand Vietnams inside this Vietnam. I have been just a newcomer, in these years, who has felt the streets of the country; roads ready to be painted by millions of lives under a huge variety of helmets, in a line, in one road, in the big avenue, in the dirt road, in the mountain’s side, in the river or lake shore. The textures and colours of these daily armours doing an obedient line show the energy of life even under the water of the thousand lakes, where once another privileged armour helmet dreamed of dragons rising out of the waters.

The lake is big, but they don´t have a choice, they just try to be themselves with a helmet in a buried motorbike inside the brown waters’ lake, with the face buried in the water that is the nation (like the poet explained about the word nước in Vietnamese). The students, the workers, the office people, the housekeeper, the grandma, the great grandma, the family, the market seller, the driver, the survivors who had still the promise of clean water in their mind to keep going looking to the same direction, the line don´t give the chance to see behind.

Hard hats with many options on the surface, millions of shapes, decorations, brands and all kinds of mixture colours, but all of them are attached to a strict steel cane that structures the line without compassion or kindness. The wheels of these machines of life are still hooked to the mud, even thou, in all the ornamented strong heads you still can find a hope or an ideal to explore. I´m from a far land that even many of those helmets haven´t heard before, and I still don´t need words to be moved as a Vietnamese with this view of inflexible routes full of creative head armours.

Then, to answer the artist´s question when the artwork is titled “OUT?”, I think, I´m not an authorized voice to talk about the intention of the artist, but I can answer as a simple foreign observer, this artwork is about the guts of the borders, inside, but if you don´t pay attention, as many distracted tourists, you would think this is just a chaotic noise in the streets, there, outside the water.

Blanco Betancour Daniel Mauricio

Blanco Betancour Daniel Mauricio từng làm giám đốc nhà xuất bản của Đại học Jorge Tadeo Lozano và hiện tại là giảng viên giảng dạy (online) tại Học viện Instituto Caro y Cuervo (Thủ đô Bogota, Colombia).