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Eating plums and giving peaches with Duy Hoàng

Duy Hoàng

This interview is from SDPB's daily public-affairs show, In the Moment, hosted by Lori Walsh.

When interdisciplinary artist Duy Hoàng travels to a new residency experience, he doesn't pack much in his suitcase.

Hoàng is the Stuart Artist-in-Residence at South Dakota State University. He's an installation artist, which means he gathers most of his materials once he has arrived in a new place. He then begins to transform those bits of ephemera into not only art but something akin to home.

Hoàng immigrated to the U.S. from Vietnam. In some ways, the artist has created his own method of nesting, of home-making, of seeing the world and searching for his place in that world. What if we took a cue from the artist and tried to see our own environment in new ways?

Lately I've been reading a book called The Art of Noticing by Rob Walker. The book is filled with inspiration that ranges from looking for color themes on a neighborhood walk to exploring the forbidden art of urban trespassing. I think artists like Hoàng are skilled at speaking for all of us even as they bring their own expression into our communities. They invite us into new pathways of being. They invite us to see ourselves in new ways.

Try this: Explore a place you think you know really well, maybe someplace you've even come to consider boring. Go to that place and search for something new — a new sound maybe. Can you use that new object or experience to create art, even if that art isn't something you might discover in a gallery?

Details on Hoàng's presentations:

Tuesday, August 14, artists Duy Hoàng offers a a public lecture "Eat a Plum, Give a Peach," in which he shows the progression of his art form over the last few years. The event is at 6 p.m. in Founders Recital Hall on the SDSU campus.

Hoàng earned his BFA at the University of Massachusetts Lowell in 2013. He then moved to New York to achieve his MFA at Columbia University in 2017. Between residencies, he resides in New York City.

Lori Walsh is the host and senior producer of In the Moment.
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