Month of Art Practice (MAP) is an art project dedicated to the development of contemporary art, initiated and run by Heritage Space, the independent art organization in Hanoi, Vietnam. MAP takes place with an aim of creating a platform for artistic practice, intellectual exchange, public programs and events. Curators and artists from Europe and Asia, along with young talented Vietnamese artists will join this workshop and intellectual programs for two months then present in the final exhibitions. From Switzerland, Akosua Viktoria Adu-Sanyah and Burkhard Meltzer will participate at the Month of Practice.

Akosua Viktoria Adu-Sanyah (*1990) is an internationally exhibited and published German-Ghanaian visual artist and documentary photographer based in Zürich, Switzerland. She equally engages in documentary work and conceptual arts, emphasizing the materiality of photography. Adu-Sanyah is known for her large-scale handmade chromogenic prints: the color darkroom is essential to her practice.

AKOSUA VIKTORIA ADU-SANYAH: During my residency, I plan to explore the interplay of mobility, dreamscapes, and transition using photographic processes and moving imagery. My project is anchored in the contrasting dimensions of motion – the perceived immobility of trees, the unrestricted movement in dreams, and the distinct patterns of animal motion.

The aim is to weave these threads together, integrating the evolving developments of Hanoi into my work, which will continue to grow even after the residency. I’m particularly intrigued by the concept of transition, a dance between the genesis of life and its eventual departure, and how this dance mirrors our everyday movements.

Night, as an entity, will be a core aspect of my research, delving into how it necessitates different modes of mobility and a shift from visual dominance to a reliance on other senses. I wish to explore this surrender to the darkness and how it informs the dichotomy of moving away from versus moving towards something.

This residency is an opportunity for me to push the boundaries of my artistic practice, and I am excited to see what can be accomplished with the available resources in this country.

Dr. Burkhard Meltzer (born 1979 in Halle/Saale) is associate lecturer at the University of the Arts Zurich (ZHdK) and a freelance critic/curator based in Zurich. After studying photography in Dortmund and Zurich, he was part of the curatorial team of the Kunsthalle St. Gallen from 2003 to 2007 and has been organizing several projects as a freelance curator – such as Gibst Du mir Steine, geb ich Dir Sand (Basel 2012), Rethinking the Modular (Milan 2015) and A chair, projected. (Zurich 2019). As an author, Meltzer`s contributions have been published in magazines such as frieze magazine, artforum.com and form.

Furthermore, Burkhard Meltzer has been studying British Literature, Art and Media Theory at the University of Konstanz from 2012-2014 and co-heading several research projects at the Institute for Critical Theory at ZHdK on design`s role in contemporary art from 2008-2015 – a monograph on this topic (also: dissertation at the University of Wuppertal) has been published in 2020: Das ausgestellte Leben. Design in Kunstdiskursen nach den Avantgarden, Kadmos Berlin.

DR. BURKHARD MELTZER: My plans for the residency in Hanoi are to take part in the scheduled mentoring program of MAP 2023, to get in touch with and to explore the contemporary art scene in Hanoi/Vietnam and to provide insights in my current research on transcultural relations between Europe and East Asia in contemporary art.