Stitches, space, sting rays and shadows

At the Festival Hue in central Vietnam in 1998, they noticed the similarities, or at least the similar themes, of their pieces.

Since then, they have returned to Vietnam many times. Their second joint exhibition at Mai's Gallery in HCM City opened o­n Friday.

This time, Gail joy Kenning brought her PhD research work of lace-making patterns, Glen Clarke his video of bomb craters, Bonita Ely her photographs of diseased sting rays and Sue Pedley her blue prints of a saxophone.

Set up in the small showroom of the gallery o­n Nguyen Hue Boulevard, "Procession" is more about the process than the pieces themselves, explain Kenning and Clarke, who came to Vietnam for the exhibition's opening.

For her work, Kenning takes lace patterns. She encodes the familiar, often complicated patterns into a computer and then lets the computer generate completely new o­nes. Some of them she tries to knit again.

The outcome o­n display are post-it notes with signs o­n them, pasted o­n the gallery wall, in interlocking circles. More interesting, however, may be the little cubes o­n the floor next to that pattern.

Exhibition visitors are asked to each take o­ne box, filled with post-it notes and instructions, to form a pattern themselves and send a photograph of it back to Kenning who plans to use these in her research work.

'These patterns are easily dismissed... as something old ladies make," Kenning says. "But it's interesting how people make something without thinking about it."

Clarke's work is a 20-minute video of a hill in northern Laos, full of bomb craters and landmines. Clarke filmed the desolate landscape while walking. o­n the wall next to the television are some blurred photos of trees, fields and more craters.

The photos have such low resolution to make viewers look beyond the actual objects. Clarke says his pieces explore the physical, cultural and emotional nature of space and places' historic significance.

Clarke has been working with this topic for years, encouraged by his recent involvement with Project Renew, a non-profit organization that removes unexploded ordinances in Quang Tri Province in central Vietnam and educates children about the danger of the bombs, left in the ground and still as lethal more than 30 years after the war ended.

"I use my profession as an artist to show this problem continues," Clarke says. "The job of the artist is to deal with difficult subjects... and then you cannot sleep."

Next to Clarke's is Pedley's work "Sounds of Shadows" - five pictures in navy blue and off-white. Pedley makes them by exposing paper treated with a light-sensitive chemical to the sunlight for different lengths of time.

She uses everyday objects, such as bamboo blinds and saxophone, that allow light to permeate them and shows how shadow and light interact to form sometimes clear, sometimes difficult-to-decipher images.

The most prominent of Ely's works o­n display consists of a series of photographs titled "Sting Ray" about death and decay and the impact people have o­n their environment.

Most of the photos depict dead or diseased sting rays, slimy and revolting. The photos' hues are mainly blue-grayish, giving them a cold and aesthetic feel.

"Procession" lasts until May 21. Mai's Gallery at 16 Nguyen Hue Boulevard in HCMC's District 1.