Reap the whirlwind

huong NgÔ

This artist book serves as the anchor of the exhibition, Reap the Whirlwind, the solo exhibition of artist Hương Ngô previously on view at Aspect/Ratio. The book is a collection of five handmade volumes with text excerpts from congaï novels that each narrate a different version of the logistical, ethical, and political aspects of the concubine system often practiced between Indochinese women and French men during the colonial period. Though appealing to a pulp fiction readership, each book offers a portrait of a character who is politicized against oppressive forces through her congaïship. Ngô has overprinted the collection with thermochromic ink, preventing the viewer from reading the text until it is touched and implicating them in this matrix of intimacies.