In April 2016, during our third visit to Vietnam, we met up in Saigon with our friend Quinh Pham, pioneer and founder of the country's first contemporary art gallery, to take part in artist Hung Viet Tran's project: Livinwondr.

The Galerie Quynh, which today occupies a handsome 600 m2 multi-level space in the center of the city, showcases drawings, paintings, videos and installations by emerging and established Vietnamese artists such as Tuan Andrew Nguyen, winner of the Prix Joan Miro 2023.

Quynh's mission is to support art education and develop art-friendly infrastructure in Vietnam. After 20 years of sustained activity, the gallery is now internationally renowned.
In 2014, Galerie Quynh launched a non-profit initiative, Sao Laled by artists Tung Mai and Nguyen Kim To Lan, to develop art education. 

Sao La's aim is to make contemporary art accessible to the Vietnamese public, through educational programs and workshops, while developing training spaces for the young and active Vietnamese artistic community.
Sao La not only serves as a platform for exhibitions, film and video screenings, workshops and readings, but is also an informal space for experimentation, creation and encounters for young artists.

Livinwondr (live in wonder) is as much a stunning sculpture as it is a concept.

Livinwondr was conceived, realized and coordinated by artist Hung Viet Tran, based between Saigon and Los Angeles.
This collegial project of an "organic" work whose very nature is changeable and adaptable, will bring together some thirty artists when it is launched at the gallery in March 2016.

Modular and evolutive, this sculpture can be assembled with a variable number of elements (the bars) and can withstand bad weather. It can be placed outdoors as well as indoors.
The challenge is to make it accessible to a wide range of audiences, so that it can be exhibited in emblematic locations in Saigon and Hanoi, outdoors, in public squares and shopping areas. 

Livinwondr is made up of stainless steel bars 60 cm long and 4/4 cm thick, which can be assembled together. Subtly engineered and sophisticated - modifiable and modular, these shapes seem infinite. Each bar is factory-engraved (in negative) with phrases, poems or quotations, as well as drawings by artists, designers, architects, tattoo artists, draughtsmen, etc. The result is elegant and shimmering, so smooth is the stainless steel...

Livinwondr was presented at Galerie Quynh from May 6 to 14, 2016: an exhibition whose aim is also to raise funds enabling new bars to be engraved and the sculpture to be developed... ad vitam aeternam.