Alison Nguyen
艾莉森．阮

Prosthetic Memory
《義肢記憶》
2025

Presented by gdm
由爍樂畫廊呈獻

Prosthetic Memory
2025
H 400 x W 628 x D 1200 cm
Multi-channel videos, color, stereo sound, severed Seville, metal, casters, LED lights, dirt, various electronics parts, cinder blocks, monitors, gaming monitor stand, metal seating, found objects, A-frame carts, PVC strip curtains

How do we navigate the layers of personal and collective memory regulated by systems? In Prosthetic Memory, Alison Nguyen combines film, installation, and sculpture to explore the porous boundaries between lived experience and the politics of cultural memory. Divided by translucent PVC curtains in deep blues, greens, and yellows, the installation evokes industrial spaces such as warehouses and car washes, serving as metaphors for the infrastructures that shape memory and identity. The work brings together two speculative fictions. Across from a limousine cut in half with dirt teeming from its insides, history as hypnosis is presented in a triptych. The yellow on orange poem Cu by the artist’s brother, Matthew Nguyen, unravels an absurd narrative. The narrative of a childhood outing in a limo is interrupted by voices from a different language, eerie and repetitive like a bird call, or an error script calling upon yet unable to conjure the long aftermaths of the American War in Vietnam. In the next room, Aisle 9 is set in a family-owned hosiery factory, part of which is rented out to a start-up company in order to avoid layoffs. Nguyen’s process combines personal elements with broader historical research, weaving interviews, theory, archival fragments, and speculative storytelling into layered visual and sonic landscapes. By questioning who is remembered and how, Prosthetic Memory invites viewers to consider how technology mediates history, offering a poignant reflection on the complexities of identity and labor, and the politics of cultural memory.

《義肢記憶》
2025
400（長） x 628（闊） x 1200（深）厘米
多聲道影像、色彩、立體聲、切割汽車、金屬、腳輪、LED 燈、泥土、各種電子零件、煤渣塊、顯示器、遊戲顯示器支架、金屬座椅、現成物、A型架推車、PVC窗簾

我們該如何應對被制度操控的個人和集體回憶？在《義肢記憶》中，艾莉森．阮結合了電影、裝置藝術和雕塑，探索生活經驗與文化記憶的邊界。被深藍、綠和黃的半透明門簾劃分的裝置體現了如倉庫或洗車場般的工業空間，象徵著塑造記憶和身份的基礎建設。這件作品由兩個推想虛構故事組成。一輛豪華轎車被切成兩半，裡面流出大量土壤。建構的裝置彷佛將歷史呈現在一幅三聯畫中。藝術家的弟弟Matthew Nguyen創作的詩句《Cu》像亂碼般融入畫面，展開了一個荒謬的敘事。乘坐在豪華轎車的情節被另一種語言的聲音打斷。持續不斷的聲音如同鳥鳴般怪異，又像充滿錯誤的講稿，無法喚起戰爭中美國在越南留下的漫長餘波。《Aisle 9》設定在一間家族經營的絲襪工廠。爲了避免裁員，工廠部分空間被租給了一間新創公司。阮的創作過程融合了個人元素與廣泛的歷史研究，將訪談、理論、檔案片段和推測性敘事編織成多層次的視覺和聲音體驗。通過質疑被記錄的歷史與對象，及其記錄方式。《義肢記憶》邀請觀眾思考科技如何介入歷史，並對身份、勞動以及文化記憶上的政治激發深刻反思。

Born 1986 in Delaware
Lives and works in New York

1986年出生於德拉瓦州
現於紐約生活和工作