Phuong Vu: Gen Z's Fire Mountain

Phuong Vu is one of the youngest people to attend the Influential Vietnamese 2024 forum held in France at the end of March.

Appearing with dyed green hair, ears and nose studded with cool hip hop style earrings, visual artist Phuong Vu (full name: Vu Thien Phuong) leads guests into Nirvana Streetwear, where there is Antiantiart studio that he is the co-founder.

In a creatively decorated space, Phuong's brothers are half asleep after a tiring night of meeting deadlines.

Phuong Vu and Antiantiart became two keywords searched online when Apple CEO Tim Cook visited Vietnam in mid-April.

At the end of March, the group's "big brother" - Phuong Vu was one of the youngest people to participate in the Vietnam Global Leaders Forum 2024 (VGLF 2024) held in Paris (France).

At that forum, listening to the uncles, aunts, brothers and sisters talking, Phuong admitted that she was "too small". Each person had a different field, but in the end, they all told "the story of Vietnam". What is that story in the creative field?

Phuong thought for a moment and then shared all his experiences over the past 10 years, from when he was a delivery guy for a fashion store and was drawn into the magnet of the vast but stimulating world of images.

Phuong Vu believes that Vietnam has a generation of young, dynamic, intelligent creative workers who are always updated with world trends but still need support and foundation to develop.

Japan has anime, samurai, traditional paintings; Korea later also created K-pop culture..., those are beautiful "foundations" to step out into the world. Vietnam has many cultural disturbances, many cultures within one culture. Identity is "very chaotic" and we lack a specific, clear "foundation" for contemporary art to emerge and spread its wings.

PHUONG VU

Once upon a time, the West, Korea and Japan were the destinations.

"In the previous generation of creatives, the story of Vietnam was not often mentioned. Vietnamese people often have a foreign mindset and there was a time when people in this industry considered the West, Korea or Japan as their destination," Phuong said.

Now, that has changed somewhat with the shift in aesthetic trends from Western culture to Asian culture. Many young people have started to incorporate Vietnamese materials, but the influence is not too great.

This 9x mentioned Trinh's music or the paintings of artists of the Indochina generation as two examples of real influence. Currently, the Vietnamese quality expressed in the products of the contemporary generation is quite faint.

Phuong Vu said, Antiantiart often receives requests from customers (both international and domestic) who want to look like Korea, Japan, or the West... When he hears it, he feels very "itchy" because it is a cultural bias. Why is that?

Even though I'm not a big fan of traditional culture - as Phuong confessed, but as someone who works in the field of image, Phuong finds her Vietnam to be... beautiful.

He doesn't like any comparison that tends to elevate something and at the same time put something down. For Phuong, everything has its own good and interesting side. He wants to see it as equal as any other material in the world.

That is why artists often put a lot of Vietnamese elements into their products, thereby wanting to clarify one thing: Everything can be made beautiful if you know how to do it properly.

Phuong Vu explained from his own perspective that the country has gone through continuous wars, and culture has not been given attention or built firmly. The economy has developed, and Vietnamese people themselves learn very quickly but lack a foundation. What young people absorb (about contemporary culture) is too different from traditional culture.

Visual artist Phuong Vu - Photo: NVCC

In generation Z, young people now have the opportunity to study abroad, their thinking is very "western", very new, but they have not really "experienced" Vietnamese culture.

Those in Vietnam who understand and feel Vietnamese culture clearly do not have the necessary and sufficient conditions in terms of knowledge and foundation to create products that are popular and go out to the world more.

Therefore, although we have many elements (design factors) to develop, for the above reasons, it is difficult for many people to work in this field.

Phuong Vu said, Vietnam is like a large piece of land but no one has built the foundation yet. A solid foundation is still needed to be able to continue to the 5th, 6th floor... in developing creative industries and cultural industries.

And on that path, there are many difficulties but also many advantages. Among them is the fact that Vietnam possesses a young, very young, energetic, intelligent, and diligent workforce that keeps up with trends.

However, to harmoniously combine traditional cultural materials with contemporary culture, we need to identify what Vietnamese quality actually is here.

Currently, some people use this material quite arbitrarily. Phuong Vu tells the general picture of Sapa and wonders how that land has been and is being "destroyed".

"Vietnam often does culture and tourism in a way that exploits everything to the fullest, but not in the right way. We are busy "eating ready-made" and "digging" on an unclear foundation," he said.

Behind the scenes of the video Spring Flower Song

The impossible dream and the huge reward

Phuong Vu does not call the work he is doing creative. Instead, he considers it "a profession to support himself", "nothing lofty".

The path he took taught the leader of Antiantiart the romance, the flightiness and the sobriety needed to touch the "unimaginable".

Born into a poor family, Phuong Vu said he was not a good child (he loved hip hop too much, despite his parents' objections, he still dropped out of school to follow his brothers in a street dance group).

Later, he had to do many jobs to make a living, from being a shipper for a familiar fashion store, to selling phones, then selling secondhand goods, then opening a clothing store. Because he didn't have money to hire models, he had to take the photos himself...

"At that time, the world of images, fashion... was so beautiful, but no matter how I imagined, I never thought I would one day do this job because it was so far away," Phuong leaned back in her chair and reminisced about her early days.

Then, over time, I tried step by step, both walking and learning, gaining experience. On that path, I did whatever job could support me.

Without formal education, Phuong tried to read books, watch and listen more, and accumulate knowledge here and there as her personal documents.

In the creative industry, copying is not bad. But if you copy content without your own point of view, without your own ego, and without adding your own content, then it is bad.

Phuong Vu

In 2018, Antiantiart studio was established, gathering brothers with the same aspirations and interests. Phuong often tells his colleagues to try to make Vietnamese products that approach world trends.

Starting from small projects, in just a few short years, Antiantiart quickly became a formidable name in the creative community.

Along with advertising projects, Antiantiart also accepts small projects with high artistic value. Phuong Vu said, they try to go long-term and then step out of the border, so that one day they will not have to be stuck with making money and living but do something bigger.

What does Phuong remember most at this moment? Phuong talks about the salary in the early days, from a few million - we had to share each odd number, to a huge tens of millions - we were so happy that we went to show it off to our family and relatives.

I remember the old iPhone we used to whisper our first dream together. I also remember the old camera that was given to me with the message "being with you is more valuable" as if someone was giving me a dream... All of them became important moments.

Therefore, when talking about himself, Phuong Vu is quite honest about what he thinks or feels, and is also very realistic in not indulging his emotions too much in order to do more of the things he sets out to do.

According to this young man, human personality is trained over time and day by day, he sees his personality more clearly, exploits himself more...

Apple CEO Tim Cook (left cover) visits Antiantiart's "headquarters"

I don't like to "reduce" myself to a word or a phrase. I think there are more words to express myself.

PHUONG VU

Still a teenager dancing hip hop on the streets of Hanoi

In 8th and 9th grade, Phuong Vu began to explore hip hop culture through dancing on the streets of Hanoi. At that time, the hip hop community was not as strong as it is now, so groups of passionate teenagers had to wander everywhere to find places to dance.

Thanks to that, a new cultural space with many differences has sprouted in the hearts of 9x teenagers with ways of telling stories, expressing and connecting with the world that are different from the usual ways of expression.

Hip hop gave Phuong Vu everything: brothers and friends, a fun job and a lot of knowledge to do the job. Thanks to hip hop, the ideas about images are also open and vast.

He likes the feeling of images being created from thoughts, and then being able to be seen, touched, photographed or filmed.

MV Raise a Cup to Dispel Sorrows

Going to Thailand, Korea, Japan…, seeing everything too flat, too neat or too clean, too neat is boring. The chaotic, lopsided state… of Vietnam can create images that even the creators could not have calculated in advance.

The best and most liberating thing is that beauty comes from the artist's choice of each moment, material, and time of creation.

Phuong loves that "alive" and "soulful" feeling in Vietnam and wants to bring that atmosphere into Antiantiart's products.

Antiantiart is based in Hanoi but Phuong Vu flies to Ho Chi Minh City like going to the market. However, he did not go to the South like many others.

Phuong is still in Hanoi with its extreme two opposite states: very hot and very cold, extremely nostalgic and extremely modern... Because it's great here, it really stimulates creativity.

Not going slowly but trying to go steadily, the path Phuong Vu takes is the answer to the destiny of a true Son Dau Hoa. Looking at the products that this young man stands behind, you can see a dream appearing, vast and gradually shining.

Like flowers blooming from the darkness, from the rocks; like square banh chung, round banh day on high, like traditional musical instruments resounding and blending into one in the atmosphere of contemporary art… in the video Hoa xuan ca , Phuong Vu shows a warm narrative like a fire on the mountain.

He will continue to travel in the land of Vietnamese culture, in the world of images that he considers beautiful, with many secrets to discover and interpret.

Antiantiart is the headquarters of more than ten Gen Z youth, very young and passionate.

Together with Phuong Vu, they have released a series of "artistic" products that have gone viral online such as Con rong chau tien in collaboration with Apple, Vietnam Airlines' flight safety video, Hoa xuan ca video (in collaboration with VTV), Ha Noi mot phat toi , Thu Do Cypher ...

There are also MVs by many V-pop artists such as Cooking for you by Den Vau, Hit me up by Binz (aka Xuan Dan), Call me by Wren Evans, Raising cups to relieve sorrow by Bich Phuong.

Recently, there is the MV pho real by rapper Low G, Anh Phan in collaboration with Canadian rapper bbno$.

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/phuong-vu-son-dau-hoa-gen-z-2024042518072655.htm