RE:SOUNDING aims to locate, record, digitise, and re-engage with the percussive sounds of the Vietnamese Bronze Age Đông Sơn drum.
Displaced by colonisation and the post-war trade in Southeast Asian antiquities, these drums have the significance of announcing the rain, harvests, fertility, and well-being of local communities as well as instruments of resistance and warfare. Now held in museums and collections throughout the world, this project reimagines how the Đông Sơn drum can conceptually exist beyond the museum display cabinet.
In the hands of contemporary artists and musicians, the digitised drum sample will continue the acoustic voice and cultural impact of these ancient instruments.
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James Nguyen + Victoria Pham
For the first installation of FCAC’s CONNECT I series across January and February 2021, RE:SOUNDING makes its first physical exhibition debut. Featuring excerpts from EPISODE I and EPISODE 2 from the RE:SOUNDING project and fragmented casts of the Dong Son Drum artefact itself, CONNECT I explores the fragmentation of the museum collection. Greatest thanks to Tamsen Hopkinson for curating this project as part of the series.