Alongside performance, painting, drawing and installation, ceramics have become a central focus in Bùi Công Khánh’s practice since the early 2000s. The vases exhibited here are part of a new body of work created between 2022 and 2023 in Bát Tràng – one of Viê.t Nam’s oldest pottery villages, active since at least the fifteenth century. Bùi Công Khánh works in the village alongside artisans for several months each year. Some of his vases display the beautiful ivory-white crackle glaze characteristic of the village – made from lime, rice husk ash and light pink kaolin clay – while others have a glossy finish. Handpainted motifs, including dragons, cityscapes, smoke, clouds, human figures, drooping cobalt sunflowers and chrysalis-like forms, adorn the vases, exploring the complex interplay between past and present. This theme also surfaces in Head count 2017, an abacus that replaces its beads with exquisitely glazed human heads.

Alongside these works, Bùi Công Khánh presents his first foray into film, an homage to Bát Tràng inspired by the history of how the Latin alphabet arrived in Viê.t Nam through Portuguese Jesuit missionaries in the fifteenth century. Weaving personal stories with metaphor and references to cultural heritage, his work reflects on the legacies of ancient and modern histories of trade, conflict, colonialism and development which continue to shape both individual and communal lives in Viê.t Nam.