please...
rotate
your phone

‘The feeling to be ‘otherd’ by your surrounding has been my companion since I moved to Europe 23 years ago. It did not matter how perfect my dialect was or how much I shaped and moved my hands the way they did. I’d copy their walk, their talk, their anger and even their laughter. It was never enough – I was never enough. All I was for them was my straight, black hair, my full lips, my black pupils gazing through my differently shaped eyes.’ – excerpt of a diary entry.

– Thy Truong (they/she) is a transdisciplinary artist working and living in Basel, Switzerland since 2018. In the past three years Thy has been working more as DJ and sound-artist around Basel / Zurich. Their sound pieces consists of poetic story-telling, voices and altered fieldrecordings are inseparable from their artistic practise, hence installations.

___________________Learning various foreign languages as a child later lead them to the choice of creating poetry infused soundscapes. A self-taught mechanism, in order to make sense of the two ‘cultures colliding’ and natural outcome to perceive and produce language, that does not only dictate functionality but intends to create emotionality, sensation, and atmosphere, in order to manifest the world(s) inbetween and within all its complexities.

The themes of their works are (personal) memories and psychological mental states, both in relation to bicultural contexts. Because:
“𝚄𝚕𝚝𝚒𝚖𝚊𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚢, 𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚢𝚘𝚗𝚎 𝚒𝚜 𝚖𝚊𝚍𝚎 𝚘𝚏 𝚖𝚎𝚖𝚘𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚜.
𝚃𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚒𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚘𝚗𝚕𝚢 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚛𝚎𝚖𝚊𝚒𝚗𝚜 𝚘𝚏 𝚞𝚜 𝚠𝚑𝚎𝚗 𝚠𝚎 𝚐𝚘.”
___________________Another fundament to all of Truong’s future researches is a much deeper understanding of the complex term ‘shadow’, which has been explored through various works such as , “KODAMA”, and “gentle songs to flickering eyes”.

“𝚆𝚘𝚛𝚍𝚜 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚜𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚍𝚜 𝚛𝚎-𝚌𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚝𝚎 𝚕𝚒𝚏𝚎, 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎𝚏𝚘𝚛𝚎 𝚊 𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚕𝚍 𝚒𝚗 𝚗𝚎𝚎𝚍 𝚝𝚘 𝚋𝚎 𝚝𝚘𝚕𝚍 𝚒𝚗 𝚏𝚛𝚎𝚚𝚞𝚎𝚗𝚌𝚒𝚎𝚜, 𝚝𝚎𝚡𝚝𝚞𝚛𝚎𝚜 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚖𝚘𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛-𝚝𝚘𝚗𝚐𝚞𝚎.”

if wings could fly on their own, and
exist freely without carrying others

when fruits could be free from consumption, and
carry themselves on wind’s arms
their function to multiply would be obsolete
end in just simply
being

**********************

relief and escape is like childplay
of hide and seek
to find the token one needs to live
what if the itch continued and pain continues and there is no salvation?
you die, eventually – that’s relief
so, is dying partially related to that feeling?
is the feeling of relief the moment one dies?
just for a short moment, one dies
so similar to sleep

**********************

ability to remember

to those, whose memories being erased, whose identity vanished
to those eyes, that have seen horrors of humanity,
the colours and shapes of violence, that can never be washed away
but do never forget those eyes, that can remember beauty
whose memory carry hope, lessons and learning
the vibrance of life
made possible to continue their time as it is

to those, who are capable to remember and able to fight
for those precious memories,
that make life possible to live

**********************

On some days only, I feel the eyes on my face. It’s irritating, but it has lost the power to make me question my existence - even more it would assure me in what I am and what I do.

To listen means to see the invisible. Because internal matters of a human being and other invisible forces like spirits and traces of what we are (𝚖𝚎𝚖𝚘𝚛𝚢) and what our society once used to be (𝚑𝚒𝚜𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢). To tilt the focal point away from the ‘body’ and towards what one hears and feels, instead of what one sees.

In order to hold a world together, four of my sound-pieces from the past became one. It holds together the question of
𝟷) 𝚗𝚊𝚝𝚞𝚛𝚎 𝚋𝚎𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚜𝚙𝚒𝚛𝚒𝚝𝚞𝚊𝚕,
𝟸) 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚑𝚞𝚖𝚊𝚗 𝚋𝚘𝚍𝚢 𝚋𝚎𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚊 𝚙𝚛𝚒𝚜𝚘𝚗 𝚊𝚗𝚍
𝟹) 𝚝𝚘 𝚛𝚎𝚕𝚎𝚊𝚜𝚎 𝚘𝚗𝚎𝚜𝚎𝚕𝚏 𝚏𝚛𝚘𝚖 𝚙𝚑𝚢𝚜𝚒𝚌𝚊𝚕 𝚋𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚍𝚊𝚛𝚢,
𝟺)𝚎𝚗𝚊𝚋𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚊𝚌𝚝 𝚘𝚏 𝚜𝚕𝚎𝚎𝚙 𝚊𝚜 𝚘𝚏 𝚛𝚎𝚌𝚘𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚢.