On January 17, 2009 from 7-10PM, Over The Opening (OTO) is pleased to present the first installment of Huong Ngo’s nomadic project Secret School featuring the work of Hong-An Truong.

The metaphysicians of Tlön are not looking for truth, nor even for an approximation of it; they are after a kind of amazement. They consider metaphysics a branch of fantastic literature. — Jorge Luis Borges, “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius”

Secret School explores the importance of the hidden and invisible in the social identity of a community through a series of time-based events and collaborations. Ranging from the political to the personal, epic to the quotidian, unknown to unknowable, how do secrets function in the transfer and preservation of power? At a time in which oversaturation of readily available information already exceeds our capacity for adequate synthesis, how can the poetics of secrets cut through the logic of facts? When does the form of a secret supersede its content, and under what circumstances must information remain a secret?

Secret School Session 01 is pleased to present Wheel In the Sky, a three-channel video installation by Hong-An Truong. Wheel In the Sky investigates the possibilities of media to bear witness to moments of trauma and moments of poetry when human memory fails. As the video unfolds, the artist questions her father about his interest in the band Journey, and his responses reveal a frustration and acute sensitivity to the loss of meaning in the translation from their native Vietnamese tongue into English and vice versa. The conversation also suggests what impact the years of colonization have had on his perception of Vietnam’s most treasured art form, the poem. Secret School will collaborate with Hong-An Truong to create a text that reveals, complicates, and further conceals what is lost in translation, creating a liminal space out of what is inexpressible.

Session 01 takes place at OTO, Brooklyn, NY on January 17, 2009 from 7-10PM. 
Secret School spans an indefinite number of sessions and range of spaces.

OTO - ONCE A MONTH, THE ARTIST COLLECTIVE MTAA CONVERT THEIR N6TH ST. BROOKLYN STUDIO INTO A VENUE FOR THE PRESENTATION OF TIME-BASED ART.

Directions to OTO
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