The Propeller Group: An Immersion into Vietnamese Culture

The first thing you see when you walk into the first room of the exhibit, Flag For The New Communism, a new wave of government and their slogan. (Photo: Jordan Miller-Mandel)  

As I walked into “The Propeller Group” installation, located at the Blaffer Art Museum at the University of Houston, I was instantly immersed in the new age of Vietnamese culture. Tuan Andrew Nguyen, Phu Nam Thuc Ha and Matt Lucero are the masterminds behind the installation. They dedicated their work to elevating the Vietnamese voice and culture on the international scene. Javier Sanchez Martinez, the curator of the museum, walked me through a world totally new to me.

Television Commercial for Communism first stops you, a commercial made by The Propeller Group to bring to light how communism affects the country still to this day. There is no color on any of the props; it is all just white, and everyone is smiling. Javier informed me that the artists were trying to reinvent communism and capitalism.

Walking into the second room of the exhibit you see three flags - much like any country with their flags - but this was a second piece for Flag For The New Communism. In the middle flag was the motto for the new communism, which talks about how everyone is equal and for a better today and tomorrow how we need to share the world.

Hue House carved jackfruit wood from the city of Hue. A lot of the antiques and various Vietnamese artifacts are seized at borders and have a lot of problems getting through to different counties. (Photo: Jordan Miller-Mandel)  

I was quickly transported back to the 18th century when I was in front of an old frame of a house from the village of Hue dating back to the 18th century. It was a very popular frame for a home back then made out of jackfruit wood; it had been transported to the museum exhibit and there had been various issues with customs, Javier said. There was a video playing with it showing the struggles of how hard it was getting artifacts into different countries and some of them are replicated and sent off as the real deal. I had never thought about how big of an issue this was until I saw this video of a man talking to the postal service and how angry he was that his artifacts were in ruins.

The next room was darkly lit with spotlights on three main pieces. You feel the mood of the exhibit change and it is more serious. We first stopped by a piece called “The Dream,” which was a Honda motorbike stripped of everything but pretty much the frame. Javier told me that in Vietnam this motorbike symbolized life. It was a common item for people to own and they used it daily for them. For this piece they left one of the motorbikes outside overnight and set up cameras to see what would happen to it. The thieves who stripped the pieces were trying to make their life better somehow.

My eyes were instantly turned to a funeral relic of a water buffalo mounted to the wall with dyed pink hair and rings on the ears and nose. My eyes quickly glanced over to a snake relic made out of wood used for funeral processions. Unsure of why they were laid out, Javier told me how they were used in funeral processions and how The Propeller Group put their own twist on these animals, as they seen in Vietnamese culture as mythological creatures.

A frontal view of the water buffalo, used in funeral processions and also featured in the film “The Living Need Light, The Dead Need Music." (Photo: Jordan Miller-Mandel) 

Walking a few steps into a dark room with a huge screen, you are transported into a funeral through the streets of Vietnam. “The Living Need Light, The Dead Need Music” was a 17-minute video that took my breath away. You are lost in the film. I completely forgot about the outside world. The cinematography and intricate attention to details makes this one of the best films I have ever seen. The film includes a band of musicians, fighters, fire breathers, snake charmers and knife swallowers with subtitles taking you through the journey. I did not want this to end. Javier told me that the Vietnamese see death as a transition not as an ending. The film was worth the whole 17 minutes to me. (See the trailer here.) 

Walking up the stairs and into another dimly lit room, you are confused when you see two screens one of an old propagandistic documentary created by the Vietnamese to go against the Americans during the war, while the other channel is of a recent shooting range. They are both in the city of Cu Chi and have the same subtitles on the different screens. It made me think of the history that has happened in that city and seeing how different it is within a matter of 30 years. It makes you stop and think about what war has done to the countries it was in. Javier informed me that it is supposed to make you feel like you are caught in between the two sides shooting in open range. You should feel the emotions and I did. It was a set of heavy videos when you really think about it.

One of the pieces from the AK-47 vs. M16 was displayed in ballistics gel to show what the two different bullets do when they interact with one another. (Photo: Jordan Miller-Mandel)  

Now to the most interesting part of the exhibit for me: The AK-47 vs. M16. Encased in ballistics gel, the bullets of the two guns showed what happened when you shot them at each other. There were crazy spiral patterns and how the metals interacted frozen in the gel. You truly felt how powerful these two weapons could be. Why were these two guns showcased? I asked Javier. He told me that they were the two guns used by the opposing sides of the Vietnam- American War. Along the wall there were black matte paper showcasing the fallout of the colliding bullets. The Propeller Group wanted something more; they wanted to show what really happens when the two bullets interact. Thus came the ballistic gels, included in this 21-piece installation is also a slow motion video of the bullets going into the gel and the outcome of them hitting each other. Seeing the heat come off the bullets and the steam being released from the gel as it is shaking and wobbling encompassed with the force of the bullets in it was my favorite part.

The museum exhibit was incredible. The Propeller Group did a phenomenal job showcasing Vietnamese culture with their own twist on it and my guide Javier did a wonderful job expanding my knowledge on the pieces displayed in the exhibit as well as Vietnamese culture and history. I would suggest anyone to go visit the exhibit and see for yourself.

The exhibit is open until Sept. 30 and takes about an hour to an hour and a half to walk through and see everything. The museum is open from 10 a.m. till 5 p.m., Tuesdays through Saturdays. Admission is free.