i am sam

Hanoi, Vietnam

March 2008

Harrow Hall of Residence
November - February 2011



Filming in Regent Park
May 2011

[Video Installation] FLOW

My video installation for Experiemental Film & Video module in the fist year at university on May 18th 2011: The two big screens (projection screens) with sounds muted of Marylebone Road and Oxford Street were in V shape. The Waterfall video with sound on was at the corner point of the letter 'V'. (5m2 in space)

Two months before I knew I would go to London, a girl from my high school passed away in London when crossing the street. I used to think such unbelievable yet horrible accident would not happen in a developed country like England. I thought maybe the girl's family just used the car accident to cover some real reason behind her death...

Four months later I arrived in London. By the first time waiting for the light for pedestrians to turn green I had my first culture shock thanks to the cars' speed on Marylebone Road. The drivers must be stressed enough to drive that fast or driving at that speed, they should be stressed afterwards. Believe it or not, most of them don't look happy. The first morning after having arrived in London the night before that, after a while finding my way from Marylebone Road to Baker Street, I found myself walking much faster than usual as if unconsciously I was catching up with others' speed. And I slowed myself down.

Big screen 1 - One side of V shape
(Marylebone Road)

Marylebone Road with stores full of mass produced souvenir about London and Britain added up with numerous tourists from all over the world makes that part of London some what 'Americanised' to me. However, later on, it is Oxford Street that makes me feel disappointed about London for not being a classical cultural European place I expected. A whole long street of super big glossy stores of supposed to be famous brands of clothes and everything else that is called fashion. Messy, noisy and dusty streets of on-going constructions, cars, buses and pavements packed with people walking one after another with big fashion shopping bags. Trying to find a way out of Oxford street in the weekends feels like trying to find a way out of the flow of a society where people slave themselves for commercial products.

Big screen 2 - The other side of V shape
(Oxford Street)

Knowing I am a full scholarship student, people who don't know me say I am lucky...If one is lucky to have a good enough life, one would not be qualified for this scholarship. Leaving all the dramas in Vietnam to start a new life in London, day after day, month by month I realise I haven't prepared myself enough for all these difficulties and stress when living in a whole new city of a whole new country doing a whole new course all by myself. Dragging myself through the gloomiest days of the winter and my mind with all problems here and home, past and present and worries about the future, I gradually find peaceful moments when being in the nature part of the city - the parks.

Recalling what I read in Thich Nhat Hanh's books about knowing your breath in each and every single second, I allowed myself to sit in the park for a long time just to look at trees, listen to the waterfall sounds, look at the water flow, breathing, thinking nothing - doing nothing but immersing myself in the nature surrounding.

Small monitor screen - At the corner point of V shape
(Waterfall, Regent Park)

References:

1.  Anger, The Art of Power - Zen Buddhism Meditation Practice Books by Thich Nhat Hanh.

2. Zen For Film (Nam June Paik, 1962-1964)