A duo in life and art
By Ian Tee

Midpoint is a monthly series that invites established Southeast Asian contemporary artists to take stock of their career thus far, reflect upon generational shifts and consider the advantages and challenges of working in the present day. It is part of A&M Dialogues and builds upon the popular Fresh Faces series.

Vong Phaophanit (b. 1961, Laos) and Claire Oboussier (b. 1963, London) started working collaboratively more than 30 years ago alongside their respective studio practices. Their work as a duo explores issues of language, memory and forms of meaning-making that transcend national, cultural and social borders. It encompasses large-scale installations, sculptural works, films, books and socially-engaged public commissions. Vong and Claire have exhibited at venues such as Tate Britain, National Gallery Singapore, National Gallery of Canada, and Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA, Dublin), among others.

Vong Phaophanit, ‘Atopia’, 1997, exhibition view, DAAD, Berlin, Germany. Image courtesy of Vong Phaophanit+Claire Oboussier Studio.

A spread from ‘Atopia’ (1997). Image courtesy of Vong Phaophanit+Claire Oboussier Studio.

Could you share a decision and/or event that marked a significant turn in your path as collaborators?

It was our decision to relocate to Berlin for a year for the DAAD (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst, or German Academic Exchange Service) fellowship in 1996. The uncanny experience of arriving in a completely alien city was a creative catalyst and turning point for our practice as a duo. The wall had come down in 1989 and Berlin was in the process of reunification. It was not yet a cosmopolitan city and was in a state of flux and reinvention, but simultaneously still weighed down by its history. As outsiders, we occupied a particular position in relation to the city and our senses were heightened to all its strangeness. The year was like a capsule in time where we were free and unrestrained by other art world commitments. We became like wanderers in the city with our newborn baby and our three-year-old, encountering our surroundings through our particular lens. It was a moment of displacement and transformation.

As partners, our dialogue and exchange became very acute and attuned; Vong was building up a bank of photographic images and Claire was building up a bank of text. The moment came when we understood that the two formed a poetic whole. We decided to formalise our practice as a duo. Berlin became the “material” for our book ‘Atopia’. The exhibition of the same name emerged from that collaboration. When we returned to London after the fellowship, our way of practising had evolved into something new.

Vong and Claire in front of ‘In Other Words’ (2018), a site responsive artwork in collaboration with Eric Parry Architects for their new Cambridge Assessment HQ Building at Cambridge University, United Kingdom. Image courtesy of Vong Phaophanit+Claire Oboussier Studio.

Behind the scenes in the production of ‘Line’ (2014). Located at Walmar House, Regent Street, London. Commissioned by Great Portland Estates with Sarah Collicott - Artscape Management and RFK Architects. Image courtesy of Vong Phaophanit+Claire Oboussier Studio.

When have been milestone achievements for you, and why have they been particularly memorable? This could relate to goals you set out to achieve, recognition at home/abroad through a particular exhibition/publication etc.

In a sense, each project is a milestone. For us, each new work is completely different and distinct; new ideas are being generated and new relationships are being built along with fresh dialogues and approaches. It is an incredibly challenging but rich way of working. The project ‘The Quiet in the Land’ (2004), which took the form of a residency and engagement with the community in Luang Prabang, culminating in the commissioning of our video piece ‘All that’s solid melts into air (Karl Marx)’ (2005) was an important one. It allowed us to spend time and create work in Laos. We worked in a similar way to when we created our book in Berlin, Vong collected images and Claire wrote text and documented the stories that we were encountering. We brought the two elements together in an intuitive, poetic editing process. This is a way of working that we have continued to evolve for all our moving image works. The video commissioned for Singapore Biennale 2019 ‘Never real historians, always near poets’ (2019) was also an important one and allowed us to delve deep into ideas that we had been discussing for many years. It was also the third time we had collaborated with our son, Savanh, who is a musician and has composed soundscapes for four of our recent video works.

In terms of our works for public space, we have worked with extraordinary architects such as Eric Parry producing works such as ‘In Other Words’ (2018) for Cambridge University and ‘The Call of Things’ (2018) for Fen Court, a beautiful new building in the heart of the City of London. These are pieces that have taken years to produce and have involved in-depth collaboration with not only the architects but engineers, developers and specialist fabricators. There are also more personal milestones such as the births of our children and the deaths of people close to us that have profoundly marked our practice. We have never separated work and life–the two form a whole and feed each other.

Behind the scenes, at a location shoot in Laos. Image courtesy of Vong Phaophanit+Claire Oboussier Studio.

Could you walk us through a typical work day, or a typical week? What routine do you follow to nourish yourself/your artistic practice?

There is no typical work day or week. Each one is new and different. There are intense periods when we are working on proposals for new commissions or exhibitions. In those times, we start with a kind of intuitive free flow of ideas and images which slowly evolve into something tangible. Then there is a period of focused work in the studio with assistants and technicians who help us produce visualisations, and with fabricators and craftspeople such as master stone carvers with whom we work to produce samples etc. During the realisation phase for major commissions, we spend time in meetings with art consultants, architects, engineers and commissioners, as well as working closely with teams of fabricators. This is fundamental to ensure the quality of the final piece. During preparations for exhibitions, we are occupied with meetings, decision-making with curators and planning with technicians.

Outside of these times, we allow ourselves fallow periods so that ideas and images can distill and emerge. During these times, Vong tends to our garden and grows vegetables and fruit. And we both draw, read, and listen to music. At the moment, we are particularly listening to classical music from all periods, Baroque to contemporary, from Henry Purcell to Tōru Takemitsu. We also take long walks together with our dog in Greenwich Park and along the River Thames near our home. These walks have become like a collective meditation where ideas are exchanged, questioned and shared. The ideas that endure find their way into new works.

Vong and Claire’s previous studio. Image courtesy of Vong Phaophanit+Claire Oboussier Studio.

Vong and Claire’s current studio, which is an unconverted bakery, 2023. Image courtesy of Vong Phaophanit+Claire Oboussier Studio.

Could you describe your studio/ working space and how it has evolved over the years to become what it is today? What do you enjoy about it, and what do you wish to improve?

In the early 2000s, we worked with the architects at Ushida Findlay to design our studio; we needed a space next to our home so we could be around our children and not spend time travelling across London every day. It was a wonderful long light space, divided into 3 areas: office/meeting area, drawing/exhibition space and workshop/storage. We kept it for 20 years and it was a real home for our practice.

But in 2019, we decided that it was time to reinvent our live/work arrangements so we sold our house and studio and moved to the other side of London and found an old unconverted bakery building quite close by in an area called Peckham. We are currently working with an architect to transform this into our new studio. In the meantime, our “studio” is wherever we are!

What do you think are the unique considerations you have working as a duo?

We have spent three-quarters of our lives together as creative partners. Vong trained in the French “Ecole des Beaux Arts” tradition and completed his studies in painting at Ecole des Beaux Arts, Aix-en-Provence, France (1980-85). Claire followed an academic route culminating in her PhD in French critical theory and visual studies at the University of Bristol. We met as students in Paris in 1984 and realised that we had shared interests in both the visual and critical fields. In 1985, we relocated to the UK and began to establish ourselves as artists. Over the next few years, we worked in dialogue, collaborated on diverse projects and established our formal partnership as artists in 1996.

However, it has taken the art world a long time to catch up. For some reason, the myth of the sole–often male–artist persists! It is as if the ideas and work of artists working as duos are somehow less valuable or marketable and considered less “authentic”. We could name many artist duos who have struggled with this intractable way of thinking, which is embedded in art historical narratives. For us, working together offers us a unique position to resist the established notions of the artist as a “solo” entity and offer forms of meaning-making that exceed national, cultural and art historical borders.

Recently, we have been doing some work with the artist-academic Susan Pui San Lok who has been researching our practice to deconstruct and challenge the way it has been represented in art history making. Her analysis is both thought-provoking and eye-opening; it reveals many assumptions, omissions and erasures. It gives us a real insight into the resistance we have faced as a duo. It has also served to reinforce our commitment to our practice, and the importance of pushing the boundaries of what it means to be producing art at this historical moment.

“For us, working together offers us a unique position to resist the established notions of the artist as a “solo” entity and offer forms of meaning-making that exceed national, cultural and art historical borders.”

What has become easier or more difficult to do as time has gone by?

Nothing is easy. Nothing is difficult. In the art world, we have found that when artists wish to reinvent and propose ideas, images and ways of working that are genuinely new and different to what they have done before, it can be met with resistance. Once an artist has been identified and categorised, it is not easy to move beyond that space. The thing to do is to keep space for clarity and freedom in one’s practice, and this becomes easier with time.

Claire, Vong and Erika Tan at the Diaspora Pavilion, Venice, 2017. Image courtesy of the International Curators Forum.

How was your experience participating in the Diaspora Pavilion at the 2017 Venice Biennale and as mentors for artist Erika Tan?

This was an interesting experience, and not without challenges. It was good to meet Erika and to be able to have a dialogue with her about so many different aspects of sustaining a practice as an artist. The choice of the word “mentor” did not sit naturally with us. Erika was already an established artist so we saw it more as an exchange, and an opportunity to support a fellow artist. It was the start of a friendship and we were able to advise Erika on the installation of her work for the Diaspora Pavilion, which was quite complex.

Could you talk about your interactions with the late David Medalla? Is there a core memory or something he said/did that you attach the most significance to?

We first met David in Berlin in the autumn of 1996. He too was participating in the DAAD fellowship that year. We remember him arriving with a vast number of plastic bin bags containing his possessions. He was living and working with his long-term partner Adam, whom we also came to know. They were incredibly warm towards us, and we have many memories of times spent together at events they organised, dining at Café Einstein and hosting them at our apartment in Wilmersdorf. We laughed a lot, and shared many extraordinary exchanges about life and art. David was an exceptional storyteller with a phenomenal long-term memory. He had the gift of bringing people together through his unique performative skills.

But the memory that is the clearest and strongest is of David telling us about the first “action” he took on arriving in Berlin. This was to take each U-Bahn line in turn out to its terminus, where he would disembark and wander around and see what he encountered. On one occasion, he told us, he met a man who was selling things on the pavement and the man engaged him in conversation telling David that he had been waiting for this moment and that he had something to pass on to him. He then produced the shell of a turtle which he said came from the Philippines and that David could now return it. It was a strange and uncanny story, and David seemed moved by this event. He once showed us the shell when we went to his place.

Vong Phaophanit and Claire Oboussier, ‘Gilding the Border’, 2018, 1kg hammered gold relief impression, approx. 60 x 2m (circumference x height). Installation process at Ao Phra Nang Beach, Princess Cave, Krabi, Thailand. Commissioned by Thailand Biennale 2018. Image courtesy of Vong Phaophanit+Claire Oboussier Studio.

Vong Phaophanit and Claire Oboussier, ‘Never real historians, always near poets’ (video still), 2019, 4K Ultra video installation, Edition of 10, 41:43 mins. Commissioned by Singapore Biennale 2019, collection of Singapore Art Museum. Image courtesy of Vong Phaophanit+Claire Oboussier Studio.

What do you think has been/is your purpose? And how has it kept you going?

It touches upon what an artist is and what artists have to give. Art is not about art; it is about what it is to be alive. Sometimes it is not easy to discern what artists are offering. We do not save lives, or put out fires … and yet without art, the world would be a much bleaker place. Art is like the oxygen that you breathe… you would realise its fundamental importance only if it is absent.

As we have been practising for nearly 40 years, we have questioned ourselves many times about the purpose of what we do. In the end, it is about making sense of the world, about empathy, keeping the process of meaning-making alive, and resisting fixity. It is a never-ending process and a vital one. To quote our work ‘All that’s solid melts into air (Karl Marx)’ (2005), “endless the series of things without name”.

“In the end, it is about making sense of the world, about empathy, keeping the process of meaning-making alive, and resisting fixity. ”

Vong Phaophanit and Claire Oboussier, ‘Northern Light’, 2008, proposal for Waterworks Park, North Belfast, Northern Ireland. Image courtesy of Vong Phaophanit+Claire Oboussier Studio.

Vong Phaophanit and Claire Oboussier, ‘Wild Way’, 2017, patinated stainless steel, gold leaf, light, 33 x 8m. Proposal for public commission in central London. Art consultant: Modus Operandi. Engineer: Price and Myers. Image courtesy of Vong Phaophanit+Claire Oboussier Studio.

On your website, you have also published your project proposals for commissions. This seems to be quite an uncommon practice within the realm of contemporary art. Could you say more about your rationale for doing so?

Our rationale for doing this is we see it as a positive thing that our work is present in the public sphere. Whether this is in physical or virtual form is not so important. Of course, it is good to realise a commission, but if for whatever reason it does not move forward to realisation, much of the creative thinking, the concept and image-making have already taken place and we think it is better to share this rather than hide it away. Often people ask us if we are not afraid of the ideas being “stolen”. This is a consideration but ultimately, we want the ideas and images to circulate freely, so this is the choice we make. It also allows people to see the full scope of our practice.

Vong Phaophanit and Claire Oboussier, ‘The presence of absence’, work-in-progress. Image courtesy of Vong Phaophanit+Claire Oboussier Studio.

Are there upcoming/ current projects you wish to share?

We were recently invited to submit a proposal for a permanent commission for a major new public building in the City of London. We are also working in the studio on a new piece called ‘The presence of absence’. It will involve both still and moving images, text and a soundscape. The core idea is the enduring presence of people who are no longer there. It is about love.

What would be a key piece of advice to young art practitioners (artist, curator, manager etc.)?

Do not always swim with the current. Move away from preconceived ideas and learn to unlearn. If you have a strong sense to create something, then just do it. You can come back later and critique it. Tune in to a space of clarity and authenticity and create things from that place.

Access the full Midpoint series here.