DINH Q. LE

’Monuments and Memorials’ marks the premiere of this pivotal series in Asia, also unveiling his first-ever three-dimensional weavings which feature the recent refugee exodus from Africa and the Middle East into Southern Europe.

In Splendor and Darkness, Lê shredded photographs of Cambodian temples and iconic portraits of Khmer Rouge victims killed at Tuol Sleng, weaving the strips into photo-montages using the age-old craft of traditional Vietnamese grass mat weaving. The resulting transfigured image is a rich, multi-faceted viewpoint of history and a reflection of our fragmented personal and collective memory.

Lê‘s long-standing desire for mural-sized, monumental foiling works interwoven with matt paper were realised for the very first time through STPI’s technical capabilities, which refined the works with greater texture and warmth. ‘All these possibilities that I always wanted for this series was never possible until I learnt what STPI could do... these new processes helped me to perfect the work.’

Haunting, iconic, and universal, ’Monuments and Memorials’ blazes new trails for Lê‘s celebrated practice.