NEW YORK.- Asia Society presents a video installation entitled Memorial Project Nha Trang, Vietnam: Towards the Complex—For the Courageous, the Curious, and the Cowards by Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba. Born in Tokyo in 1968 to a Japanese mother and a Vietnamese father, Nguyen-Hatsushiba moved to Texas at the age of nine and received formal training in painting in the United States. He moved to Vietnam in 1996 and is now based in Ho Chi Minh City, where he has been at the forefront of Vietnam's growing artist community. His works have been shown in international exhibitions in Asia, Europe and the United States.

This exhibition presents, for the first time, Memorial Project Nha Trang, Vietnam as a video installation along with two sculptural works in the form of full-size cyclos (rickshaws) designed by the artist. Filmed in 2001 in Nha Trang beach, on the southeast coast of Vietnam, the video offers captivating images of local fishermen pulling cyclos underwater—a metaphor for Vietnam's struggle with modernization, industrialization, and the process of coping with its historical past. The cyclo drivers in the film are all young fishermen from in and around Nha Trang. Untrained as divers, their movements are spontaneous and unrehearsed. The work was the first of a remarkable series of underwater video works filmed by the artist with a single underwater camera. The accompanying music, except in the opening and closing scenes, was composed by the artist. The exhibition is curated by Miwako Tezuka, Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art, Asia Society.

Asia Society Museum presents groundbreaking exhibitions and artworks, many previously unseen in North America. Through exhibitions and related public programs, Asia Society provides a forum for the issues and viewpoints reflected in both traditional and contemporary Asian art.