Lê Thuý
Hoi An

Often misunderstood as antithetical to speech or as the mere absence of sound, silence plays a crucial part in human communication. For the Hoi An-based artist, the complex phenomenon also serves as a repository for emotions, as well as a force of oppression. 

In her watercolor-on-silk painting Rumination of life and death (2023), an eerie quietness overtakes the figure of a woman cradling her child beside a wooden table. Their faces inscrutable, the woman and child appear to be in an otherworldly, yellow-green wasteland. The tender depiction of motherhood is further disrupted by the skull on which the infant’s right foot rests, and an unlit ceramic oil lamp ominously positioned on the table. In Vietnamese tradition, lamps are placed on ancestral altars and serve as protection against evil spirits. Without a flame, Lê’s mother and child are at the mercy of their desolate environment, suspended in a soundless realm between life and death.

Lê explores another form of haunting quietude in her The Silence is Deafening series (2020), which features 39 broken đàn bầu (Vietnamese stringed instruments) to represent the Vietnamese migrant workers who, in 2019, suffocated in a lorry that was transporting them through Europe. Using sơn mài, a traditional lacquer painting technique, the artist embellishes each zither with temples and rice fields, among other cultural motifs. In Teardrops (2020), a pale moon floats above mountains—a serene landscape belying the tragic story behind the artwork. In marrying these references, Lê’s zithers offer a space for grief, empathy, and healing, by listening to the voiceless.

Tracing the impact of silence across time and space, Lê created Echo (2022–23), a large, house-like installation, for the 11th Asia Pacific Triennial. The structure comprises old doors adorned with lacquer paintings of humans, animals, plants, and flowers in varying states of decay. The work also features sheer silk curtains, representing fragile dreams and memories; and crumbling, gold-flecked bricks, symbolizing neglect and forgotten values. Though full of grief, Lê’s work reframes silence as a potent form of human expression, persistently offering glimpses of beauty and hope, no matter how fleeting.

Sancintya Mohini Simpson
Brisbane

Drawing on research into her maternal family’s history, Sancintya Mohini Simpson investigates the legacies of Indian indentured labor in the British colony of Natal (now KwaZulu-Natal province in South Africa) from 1860 to 1911. As a descendent of this community, more than 200,000 of whom were recruited from the port of Madras (Chennai) to work on sugar plantations, Simpson navigates the complexities of trauma, migration, and memory, aiming to reappraise their forgotten narratives.

Simpson takes a multidisciplinary approach to her work, moving between painting, poetry, performances, and installations, while grounding her works in materials such as clay, soil, sugarcane ash, and mango wood. Across her diverse projects, Simpson employs references to many traditional artistic techniques such as Indian miniature painting. For instance, for her 15-part gouache and watercolor painting on handmade wasli paper, kūlī / karambu (2020–21), she vividly depicts the full spectrum of female workers’ lives in a coastal plantation, from their domestic routines to the harsh working conditions in the fields and hills, and scenes of violence against them. 

To reconnect with the places of her family’s generational trauma, in 2012, Simpson traveled with her mother to India in search of information, only to encounter incomplete records and archives that underscored their sense of loss. In Simpson’s first exhibition in Western Australia, “ām / ammā / mā maram,” at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (PICA), the installation mā maram (2023) shows an attempt to reconcile her mother’s family’s ruptured identity through evocative materials. Two black-clay lotas—rounded pots used in cleansing rituals—sit on a pair of scorched mango-wood benches, their lengths corresponding to each woman’s height; the vessels emit a soft scent recalling notes of mango leaves and burning sugarcane. Grounded in elements of ritual care, mā maram features ominous references to the kala pani (black waters) of the Indian Ocean; a family photograph on the wall acknowledges these lost and forgotten histories. 

A nominee for the Artes Mundi 11 prize in Cardiff and exhibiting in the 11th Asia Pacific Triennial in Brisbane, Simpson continues to explore themes of migration and labor through an intergenerational lens, connecting her family history to wider narratives of diaspora communities. 

ANTONIA EBNER