O is a genre-defying work, equal parts visual and literary undertaking:
“From a dentist’s office in San Francisco to the caves of the Phong Nha Karst, Tammy Nguyen’s O sounds the depths of personal, mineral, and geopolitical histories of Vietnam. In this many-threaded narrative, a wind that carved mountains whistles through a young girl’s teeth. The electric green of a plastic forest glints off of glazed porcelain. The shape of a bowl becomes the mouth of a cave. What emerges is a story without a center: an anti-allegory that finds its meaning in echoes and refracted light, a book stitched together by the O woven through the work as its visual spine and sonic refrain.”
In the book, Nguyen’s richly layered drawings appear interleaved within her writing, including cutout vignettes. The book contains hand letterpress elements by the artist evoking fonts and typographical interventions of Vietnam’s colonial era, creating in form and content an evocation of cultural space that has found a singular expression.
- Language : English
- Publication date : September 1, 2022
- Publisher : Ugly Duckling Press
- ISBN-13 : 978-1946433916
- ISBN-10 : 1946433918
- Product Dimensions : 4.75 x 0.5 x 9 inches
