Thursday 20 January, Wednesday 16 February and Friday 4 March 2022
Hoang Tran Nguyen
Work, Worker 2022
from the series Labour 2013–ongoing
song menu, video, site specific event-installation
dimensions and duration variable
Courtesy the artist
Offsite
Rear, Mamma Chens, 42A Albert Street, Footscray VIC 3011
University Square, University of Melbourne VIC 3010
196 Lorimer Street,
Port Melbourne VIC 3207
Hoang Tran Nguyen is a Melbourne/ Naarm-based conceptual artist, most known for site-specific and socially-engaged participatory projects that address overlapping cultural histories and politics of place. Work, Worker 2021–22 is the latest project in Nguyen’s ongoing performative series Labour, which draws connections across the histories and changing conceptions of work in Melbourne, Australia and in western capitalist societies more broadly.
Work, Worker takes the form of a participatory karaoke performance, presented over three evenings across the course of the exhibition. With a list of songs that are themed and or titled in relation to work, working and workers, the repertoire spans trade union songs to pop music, and includes tracks in both English and Vietnamese.
Nguyen invites the audience to join him in song at three separate public sites that themselves reference different conceptions of work and various histories of labour in Australia. The series begins in January in Footscray, at the former offices to the Australian Natives Association (ANA), a union for young, Australian-born white men formed in the colonial era, whose advocacy supported Federation and the White Australia Policy. Now the home of Mamma Chen’s, a new contemporary music venue, the building also bears the history of multiple artistic spaces, including as a former site of long-running artist-run initiative West Space.
The second event in February takes place in University Square, in the heart of the Melbourne University campus, against the backdrop of associations with work in relation to education and the knowledge economy of the late twentieth century. Nguyen is also a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne’s Victorian College of the Arts.
To close the series, the final event will take place in a pocket of Westgate Park in Port Melbourne, beneath the monumental form of the Westgate Bridge. The labour history of the bridge saw the tragic loss of workers’ lives during the course of its construction, while, in much more recent history, the bridge has served as a backdrop and turning point for riots in the wake of COVID-related Government mandates placed upon workers in the construction industry.
The song menus for this project will also be available at ACCA in advance of the events, in the Project Space: The Hoarding.
Read 5 Questions in Liminal with Hoang Tran Nguyen here.
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Access:
20 January
Rear, Mamma Chens, 42A Albert Street, Footscray: is a 3 minute walk from Footscray station. This location is Wheelchair accessible, it is paved but with some uneven surfaces. There is an accessible toilet onsite. Both paid and free street parking available near Albert St. Bus and train access are in close proximity.
16 February
University Square, University of Melbourne: This event takes place on a gravel surface, accessible by paved footpaths and ramps. Some seating provided, BYO picnic rug. The nearest public toilets are located at 175 Bouverie St, Carlton. Both paid and free street parking available on and around Royal Pde. Tram access in close proximity on Royal Pde.
17 March
Access information to be updated as location is confirmed.
Please contact ACCA if you have any further queries about access, the transcription and this event 03 9697 9999 or info@acca.melbourne