It's official!

Congratulations to unFound on officially opening in Stockton at Central UMC on Friday, 9/5!!

Abby and I arrived in CUMC at about 11:30 a.m. and we worked for hours setting up the space. One of the most amazing and challenging portions of the set-up was when I worked with the poem The Undoing. Abby had the brilliant idea of writing the text of the poem on the floor of the exhibit space, but b/c we couldn't actually write on the concrete, the text was written on contact paper, and Abby had to very tediously cut out portions of the poem. Putting the poem back together took forever -- complicated by the fact that I do not memorize (gasp!) my poems.

It was easy to identify the stanzas and to string together the primary words in each line, but w tripped me up were the articles, conjunctions, punctuations. It also took quite a long time to remove the contact paper backing and apply the words to the ground.

This particular step was helpful for me. It was literally a cut-and-paste revision. In my head, I was able to identify the unnecessary filler words that could be cut to pare the poem down to its essence. Something about the fiscality of cutting and pasting words on the ground really helped. It was amazing to see the poem cut apart into jumbled puzzle-pieces, then pieced together into meaningful lines that spiraled on the ground. We really immersed ourselves in "the undoing" of the poem!

Even though the Stockton heat was unbearable -- even with four fans blowing full blast in the hall -- we still had a great turn out. People walked in and out of the installation, looking carefully and looking hard for the tiny details found in the embroidered poems, in the hand-drawn outlines, and the ironed pages of books.

During the reading and presentation, I was amazed to see their open, attentive faces nodding in response to poems that were being read out loud. It was worth it just to see their reaction. And, I hope, their understanding of the poems will deepen their understanding and appreciation of the installation.

I can't possibly end this post without mentioning our host for the evening. The entire event at CUMC would not have happened without Alan's organization, management, hosting, and inspiration. We had great set-up and great food. The details were perfect, right down to the beautifully arrayed napkins and batik table centerpieces. We owe it all to Principal Alan Cook extraordinaire.

unFound: a poetry and visual art exhibition
Artwork designed by Abby King Kaiser
Poetry written by Hoang-Anh Tran
Hosted by Alan Cook!

opening at Central UMC, Stockton

Last night we opened unFound with a crowd of about thirty people. A reading sparked many interesting conversations, and it was fascinating to watch people walk through our installation as they might walk a labyrinth.

Over the many months that we constructed this piece, and more than the year that we have been discussing it, there were many many times that I felt that this would never be real. But, as we sweated through hundred degree Central Valley heat, laying out shoes, ordering words and hanging fabric, the magnitude of seeing a creative vision through hit me. We had something to say, we experienced something that we thought spoke to the human condition, and we expressed it.

Sunday we will return to Stockton to give workshops, and the exhibition will continue to hang at Central UMC through next weekend.

coming of age as an artist

this week, we open the first "show" that i have ever taken a large part of--outside of my formal education. this endeavor is an independent collaboration of a couple of artists with a vision, outside of institutional support. upon diving into this process, i had no idea the level of courage, perseverance, organizing, patience and even errand-running that would be required. so much of the work i have done for this project seems unrelated to the art itself, and yet without that work, the art would not happen.

i find significant difficulty in trying to interpret this work to friends and family, who are naturally curious about how i am spending my time these days. when asked why i am doing this, i can't come up with a good answer. it seems the answer simply is that i have to. it has been developing for so long, it just must be poured out.

i am learning what it takes to be an artist. i am drawing on reserves i didn't know i had, discovering new parts of myself in the process, for good and bad.

unFound: a poetry & visual art exhibition

unFound exhibition calendar:
5-12 sept. 2008
central united methodist church
3700 pacific avenue, stockton, ca
friday, 5 sept., 7:30 p.m.
opening reception & reading
saturday, 6 sept., 1-3 p.m.
art & poetry workshops

3-4 oct. 2008
Interplayce
2273 telegraph ave.
Oakland, CA

15 oct.— 15 dec. 2008
bade museum
pacific school of religion
1798 scenic avenue, berkeley, ca

In the spaces of travel, discoveries of the “Other” have inevitably changed the traveler in ways both unimaginable and indescribable. Going on a journey demands a redefinition of what is found and what is lost within the multi-cultural, inter-religious, socio-historical contexts of Southeast Asia.

Throughout time, Art and Poetry have served as vehicles through which these journeys are re-envisioned and these experiences recreated; Art and Poetry help to reveal the complexities surrounding these encounters. Through art, the undoing of pre-conceived intelligences moves from abstract to concrete contexts. Poetry articulates the re-construction of found knowledge that occurs in variegated forms and in the marginalized spaces.

unFound is an exhibition (un)founded on poetry and visual art to explore the multi-dimensions of holy encounters ever-present in journeys of unraveling. unFound presents to travelers and non-travelers alike an opportunity to engage in self-critical reflection within the contexts of an increasingly globalized world.

Mine or yours or ours?

I've nurtured a love-hate relationship with found poetry for a long while now, so it was quite surprising when I found myself writing a found poetry series. Even more unusual was that I felt, from the very beginning, 100% certain that I was going to use that found poetry series as the foundation for a poetry/visual art installation. After our return to the States from the Southeast Asia trip in Jan2007, I knew almost immediately (even before the worship at PSR was planned) that I needed to write a poetry series based upon our trip. I even knew that I wanted to use the reflections that the trip participants had written -- use them as material from which the poems would be crafted.

All this knowing wasn't really "knowing," though. Much like how we intuit our way around a dark room, I was intuiting my way through this process of writing found poems. I resisted the urge for such a long while because, deep down inside, I've always felt the poems would not really be my poems, that they would always be Person X's poems. When we think of craft and aesthetics, when we think of subjects, how can we say that culling a poem (fully sprung or not) from some other text qualifies as writing poetry from the depths of our felt experience?

What I realized, however, as I moved through revision after revision, was that the poems are my own. They are completely different from the very first version that included the original texts. The sense of the poem, the heart-essence of the poem, even the rhythm and feel of the poem are all new and special and unique. I feel thoroughly justified, satisfied, and fulfilled in calling them my own for they are so different in manifestation and forms that I can hardly recognize them.

When writing about craft, I'll have to be more precise. For the time being, I can only say I am learning to live with the poems as they are... whether found or unfound.

art is work

since i graduated from college, i have spent very little time overall making art in long stretches. i forgot how hard it is. yes it is a joy, yes it is where life comes form for me, but it is work.

having spent so much time talking about this project, thinking through this project, putting paintbrush to paper (or shoes in this instance) is surprisingly hard for me. it is not for lack of a plan, lack of content, lack of inspiration. i feel full of all of these things. i think it is fear. fear of such public work. fear of the authority i will be given as an artist. fear of how people will listen when i give workshops on this. fear that i won't like my own work.

and yet, courage is not the absence of fear, but the decision that something is more important than fear.

this is more important than fear. art is more important than fear.

unFound's poetic muse

Before there was the image, unFound began first with the word. No, not Logos, per se, but the poetic word. The inspiration for the poems in the crown series that forms the basis for the poetry/visual art installation came from the reflections/meditations that were written by various members of the 15 Gang that traveled to Southeast Asia. The writings were collected, permission acquired from the authors, and the crafting began. The transformation from prose to poetry was arduous and still is arduous, but the process exemplifies the heart of a line I've drawn from a poem I read a while back:

Would there be this eternal seeking if the found existed?

Even though we were working with found poetry, the heart, the essence of the poems needed to be articulated in different ways - ways much more complex than the stringing together of words in discombobulated sentences could attest to.

Each poem manifested itself in distinct form, with varying depths and colors, with differing points of access.

At first, the poems came together in large chunks that tried to capture the meaning of the prose reflections. At Turn #1, the poems began to morph and shift to express their own sensibilities. At Turn #4, the series began to show itself as a cohesiveness series. In its sixth iteration, the series is looking much, much stronger with a more solid foundation.

I've been vary pleased with the progression these poems have made. I hope you'll be able to continue traveling with us to see the poems in their current manifestations.

If you're ever lost, find yourself at unFound: unfound2008@gmail.com.