Of Opaque Poems and Paper Sculptures: Nguyễn Thúy Hằng's Intermedial Practice

Abstract: As contemporary art becomes increasingly complex and hybridized, as artists continue to cross boundaries that presumably divide mediums into neat categories, it is worth revisiting the potentiality of materials in generating instances of intermediality within an artwork or an artist's practice. This essay aims to explore how a Vietnam-based artist's experimentation with the materiality of paper renders an intermedial bridge between her poetry and sculpture. As Nguyễn Thúy Hằng walks the fine balance between different mediums in her practice, she attempts to bend the functionality of paper in her artworks and printed publications, simultaneously liberating it from intended purposes and transforming it into a trans-medially generative medium.