2.2.1 8 6 1, 2 0 0 9 - ongoing

Danh Vo presents his ongoing work on paper 2.2.1861 in which he has asked his own father, who has beautiful handwriting skills, to transcribe the last farewell letter of Saint Jean-Théophane Vénard, a French missionary in Vietnam, to his father in 1861. Danh Vo’s father, Phung Vo cannot read French, but his elegant handwriting forms a beautiful transcription of this emotional letter from son to father. Through this process, the work links to the artist’s own relationship with his father. The transcriptions of the letter poetically describe loss and departure, along with faiths and beliefs, reflecting the history of subsistence and conditions in other places.