IS A RESEARCH-BASED ARTIST EVER NOT WORKING?: A REPORTBACK FROM CODY HERRMANN ON HER APEXART FELLOWSHIP
Social Practice Queens alum Cody Herrmann is spending the month in Saigon, Vietnam as an apexart International Fellow. Read about her first impressions below.
Greetings from Saigon, Vietnam! Early in my time here I learned that while Ho Chi Minh City has been the City’s formal name on paperwork since the war ended in 1975, many people, especially those who have family ties in southern Vietnam, continue to call the city Saigon, the old name from before the northern Communist Party took over.
Anyway, I am here for one month as part of the apexart International Fellowship. It is a unique fellowship experience that sends NYC-based artists off to a city they have never been to for 30 days, and provides them with a schedule of 3 to 4 activities a day, most of which people have likely never done before, and/or are outside of the fellow’s comfort zone. It’s all about breaking out of your usual routine. A participating fellow receives a centrally located apartment, weekly psychotherapy sessions, and for the most part is alone. apex has been doing this for over 20 years, and honestly I cannot imagine this experience without a smartphone and Google calendar. They also bring artists from abroad to NYC for the same type of experience.
The most unusual part might be that apex asks for nothing in return. No expectation of producing new work, or donating a piece to the institution; in fact, they instruct fellows to refrain from making art work and engaging in self-promotion during the fellowship period. It is undoubtedly a kind of gift that comes out of my Queens College MFA where I was part of the Social Practice concentration, and it was SPCUNY who nominated me for this adventure.
After finding out I was headed to Saigon 12 days before my departure date, I chose not to research the city or even look at a map. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that similar to NYC, Saigon is built around a large river and small tributaries, and has a population of 9 million, though this city is more than twice the area of NYC. This place feels a lot like home and is more familiar than I expected.
apex has me out here in a little apartment along a dirty little canal in a neighborhood I would equate to today’s Williamsburg, Brooklyn. And that’s where things get a little tricky for me—you know I’m not supposed to be making art out here, but if you know one thing about me, you probably know I make work about public policy and development along dirty urban waterways. For most of my adult life, I have spent my free time pouring over planning documents related to land use along Flushing Creek, a little polluted river bordering my hometown of Flushing, Queens, and translating these documents into socially engaged public art works and anti-displacement advocacy work. You can see some examples on my website. While here in Saigon, it has truly been a pleasure asking folks ‘what is up with these 6 huge towers looming over the mouth of the canal?’ If you have a research-based practice, does that count as making work?
Most people’s responses revealed that VinHomes Golden River should not have been built there, and the developer’s ties to local government enabled the private complex to take over an ecologically vulnerable waterfront area. I’m not sure how much of that narrative is myth and how much is truly fact, but it really does sound just like waterfront planning at home. From the privately owned waterfront park within the Golden River complex, a 15 minute walk from my apartment, 14 construction cranes are visible in the sky. For real though, the most fucked up thing is that my Vietnamese therapist’s office is in one of these 6 towers. Kinda cruel and unusual, honestly.
It still feels surreal to wake up every morning in this apartment that gets no direct sunlight, check my Google calendar for my daily itinerary, and move through this city with barely a care or worry. The last time I felt this way I was a teenager taking Amtrak across the US. This fellowship is a strangely similar type of shitshow that I thought I would never experience again. Anyway, I can’t help but wonder, if someone told my parents in the 1970’s that their kid would one day be in Saigon crawling through Viet Cong tunnels, shooting rifles, going to tech business mixers, and taking jazz dance classes as part of an artist fellowship, would they believe them?
I’ll send another dispatch next month! Be ready to belatedly hear more about the silly little tasks I’ve been assigned, and the sidewalks of Saigon.
xoxo,
Cody
