a little blah blah

The impetus to establish a little blah blah arose from a series of passionate talks between three Saigon-based artists during 2004, Sue Hajdu, Nguyen Nhu Huy and Motoko Uda. These talks were focused on our needs and desires as visual artists working in this community and urban context at this point in the course of its development.

  After an intensive 6-month period of meetings, research and the establishment of regional networks, the albb concept was developed, and we launched our activities in January 2005. albb quickly initiated a regular series of talks, workshops and presentations by visiting international artists, curators, academics and critics. These were integral to albb's mission of making a difference in the local art scene, by expanding activities beyond gallery exhibitions and by encouraging information flow in and out of the country. In the mid-2000s, high level artistic and curatorial traffic was moving in and out of Vietnam, but very little contact was being made with the majority of artists living here. albb therefore made a conscious effort to form connections and crossroads in this area to create a forum in which ideas, practices and news from outside could be shared with the local community. With this in mind, from 2005 to 2007, albb presented 38 talks by locally and overseas-based artists and curators. These regular gatherings also worked to bring the community together in a context of intellectual challenge and engagement, another area in need of development.

In 2005 we ran our first residency, with a four-month stay by Czech Republic-based butoh dancer, Ryuzo Fukhara. Later in the year albb became a member of RESARTIS. Other areas of focused activity in 2005 were research into artist's initiatives and alternative spaces in the region, networking, attending conferences and the acquisition of catalogues and monographs to form the open-access collection that later evolved into albb Reading Room. It was with regret that our co-founder, Nguyen Nhu Huy left us in mid-2005. The driving force behind albb through its most intensely active years of 2006 and 2007 was co-directors, Sue Hajdu and Motoko Uda, both of whom practice as visual artists, but also actively curate and write about art and cultural life in the region for international and local publications.

  Our program of exhibitions and art events was launched in January 2006. Following on, more or less bi-monthly came a series of projects and exhibitions, and our second residency-based project, The Dream Collector, which was the first public art project to be run in Ho Chi Minh City. Each project aimed to present something new, something that had never been done before in the local context. Meanwhile, through the networks that we had developed over two years of activity, albb started building towards further international collaborative projects with artists and curators—projects which took shape in 2006, 2007 and beyond.

After consolidating our collection of catalogs, books and art ephemera, we launched the Reading Room program in November 2006. Capacity-building with young Vietnamese artists and students through our talks and projects programs also became an aim at this time, and remains an on-going concern towards building arts management in Vietnam. albb worked with a variety of assistants and volunteers throughout 2005-2006, and launched its internship program in early 2007 in a more concerted effort towards capacity-building. In early 2007 we also established a residency program. In late 2007, albb co-director Motoko Uda permanently left Vietnam and re-settled in Tokyo.

By 2008 the Saigon art scene had experienced a shift of character. Artists were now familiar with artist talks, biennales, the notion and role of international curators; and had experienced the potential of innovative and dynamic artist-run activities by albb and other groups. The introduction of talks or reading rooms by other art organizations in Saigon was a signal that albb's period of pioneering had matured, and it was now time to re-orientate the program.

albb currently presents one major project each year, with a focus on work in the public space and community-based projects. Curators interested in co-developing a project in these fields should contact albb via email. Capacity-buidling and the Reading Room remain an ongoing part of our program. 