DARK LAB PRESENTS
A SILENCE SO LOUD: A GROUP EXHIBITION
CURATED BY TAO LEIGH GOFFE AND CECILE CHONG
(BROKEN CHINA)
THE ARTISTS
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TUAN ANDREW NGUYEN
B. HO CHI MINH CITY, VIETNAM
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JOHANN DIEDRICK
B. PLANTATION, FLORIDA, USA
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JEREMY DENNIS
B. SOUTHAMPTON, NY, USA
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SIM CHI YIN
B. SINGAPORE
Mar 15 - Apr 13, 2025
Tiger strikes asteroid, New York
Dark Lab is pleased to present A Silence So Loud an installation featuring works by artists Tuan Andrew Nguyen,Johann Diedrick, Jeremy Dennis, and Sim Chi Yin on view at Tiger Strikes Asteroid (TSA-NY) in Brooklyn, New York, co-curated by Tao Leigh Goffe and Cecile Chong. Part of the curatorial vision of the two NYC-based artists who collaborate under the name Broken China, the group show is the first of an ongoing series of multi-sensorial activations on the topic of what colonialism fractures. The second activation in the series will take place by invitation of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the third at the Calabash International Literary Festival in Jamaica (May 2025). Founded to explore histories fragmented under colonialism, the creative practice Broken China allows the two to linger on the texture and materiality of art that engages with archival process. The gallery exhibition threads together military histories of Shinnecock Nation, Jamaica, British Malaya, Morocco, and Vietnam collectively addressing the weight of imperial violence, what is left unsaid, and the ethics of who that disinherits. There is a silence so loud that it keeps secrets from the future. Challenging the dominant myths of U.S., French and British empires, the artists disturb what has become buried over the generations. What, they ask, does silence communicate?
Inspired by the poetics of Nguyen’s video installation Because No One Living Will Listen, which explores wounded familial intimacies between North Africa and Southeast Asia, the show is structured around the resonance of letter writing in the diaspora, and the potential speculative power of the epistolary form to heal. As Jamaican novelist Marlon James writes, “The dead are always talking, and sometimes the living hear.” The four artists use text, photography, sonic sculpture, and video, to not only hear but tune into the rebellious lower frequencies of ongoing battles for sovereignty.
Opening Ceremony, Sonic Activation: Saturday, March 15, 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm EDT
Closing Ceremony, Sonic Activation: Sunday, April 13, 5:00 pm - 6:00 pm EDT
Culinary Intervention: In collaboration with Oscar León Bernal (La Lonchería), Cody Moy, and Adriana Gallo Sunday, April 13, 6:30-8:30 pm
Curatorial Lecture: Tao Leigh Goffe and Cecile Chong, Moderated by Tie Jojima, Ph.D. Sunday, April 9, 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
Sonic Rituals, Ancestral Frequencies: Artist Talk with Tuan Andrew Nguyen and the Curators. Zoom, date TBA in June
TUAN ANDREW NGUYEN
BECAUSE NO ONE LIVING WILL LISTEN, Người Sống Chẳng Ai Nghe (2023)
LETTERS FROM THE OTHER SIDE (2023)
TUAN ANDREW NGUYEN and his family emigrated as refugees to the United States in 1979. Nguyen graduated from the Fine Art program at University of California, Irvine in 1999 and received an MFA from The California Institute of the Arts in 2004. His artwork explores the power of storytelling through sculpture and video and has been the subject of solo presentations at the New Museum (2023); Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town, South Africa (2024); and the Smithsonian Art Museum (2024). Both community engaged and research driven, Nguyen taps into inherited histories and counter memories of war. He lives and works between Ho Chi Minh City and Los Angeles.
JOHANN DIEDRICK
SIRENS (2017)
PORTALS OF THE COLLECTORS (2025)
JOHANN DIEDRICK was born to Jamaican parents in the United States who inspired in him a passion for the mechanics and theory of sound technologies. His sonic sculptures are adaptive and spatially engaged. Diedrick graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 2009, and NYU Tisch School of the Arts in 2013. He is a Just Tech Fellow (2023-2025) and has just been the subject of a solo exhibition at Fridman Gallery, New York (2025). Diedrick is also the founder of A Quiet Life, a sonic engineering and research studio that designs and builds audio-related software and hardware products for revealing new sonic possibilities off the grid. He lives and works in New York.
Jeremy Dennis
NIGHTMARE, (2023)
SIGNAL (2023)
JEREMY DENNIS (b.1990, Southampton, New York) is a contemporary fine art photographer, an enrolled Tribal Member of the Shinnecock Indian Nation in Southampton, NY, and is the lead artist and founder of the non-profit Ma’s House; BIPOC Art Studio, Inc. located on the Shinnecock Reservation. In his work, he explores Indigenous identity, culture, and assimilation. Dennis holds a BA in Studio Art from Stony Brook University, NY and an MFA from Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA. Jeremy is a recipient of the Dreamstarter Gold grant and Art Matters Foundation Fellowship. He lives and works in Southampton, New York, on the Shinnecock Indian Reservation
Sim chi yin
AH MA (2024)
SIM CHI YIN is an artist whose research-based practice uses artistic and archival interventions to contest and complicate historiographies and colonial narratives of British Malaya’s forgotten war. She works across photography, film, installation, performance, and book-making. She participated in the 60th Venice Biennale (2024) and has exhibited at the Gropius Bau, Berlin (2023); and the Barbican, London (2023). She was an artist fellow in the Whitney Museum’s Independent Study Program (2022-2023), received her PhD in War Studies from King’s College London (2025), and bachelor’s (2001) and master’s degrees (2000) from the London School of Economics. She lives and works in Berlin.
"There is a silence so loud it keeps secrets from the future."
"There is a silence so loud it keeps secrets from the future."
Photographs from the opening and closing ceremonies of the exhibition in Brooklyn. Photo credit: Argenis Apolinario.
Curatorial Lecture with Tao Leigh Goffe and Cecile Chong, moderated by Tie Jojima - April 9, 2025. Learn about the curatorial process and vision behind Dark Lab's A Silence So Loud, an installation featuring works by artists Tuan Andrew Nguyen, Johann Diedrick, Jeremy Dennis, and Sim Chi Yin. It was on view at Tiger Strikes Asteroid (TSA-NY) in Brooklyn, New York, co-curated by Tao Leigh Goffe and Cecile Chong March 15- April 13, 2025.