English | Tiếng Việt

A. Farm warmly invites you to join “Sombras, nada más | Chỉ còn cái bóng”, an open studio by Mexican artist Juan Leduc Riley. A conclusion to the artist’s two month residency at A. Farm, “Sombras, nada más” follows his personal exploration into the narrative force and emotional resonance of bolero, a genre of popular music in Vietnam and Mexico, and how it rhythms with personal memory and national histories. 

A melodic keyboard, intense and high-pitched voices, love stories, melodramatic laments. Bolero is like a soap opera—a sweet and cheesy melodrama. Always in the background, in the echoes of a street, in the voice of our mothers when they are cooking, working at home, or celebrating. To Juan, this embodies a part of him he once considered his greatest weakness, now becomes a medium through which he questions the oversimplified “black & white” binary of memory and attempts to preserve its nuances.

Juan’s developing project unfolds in chapters, incorporating a series of audio-visual experiments where his humming bolero karaoke is layered over documentary clips of Saigon residency areas, alongside paintings and interactive josh papers with random lyrics from Mexican boleros & their Vietnamese translations. Through this body of works, Juan draws attention to bolero not only as a familiar presence within our landscapes but also as a persistent force, continually reshaping our understanding of cultural borders.

EVENT DETAILS

📅 Time: 15:00 — 18:00, Saturday 25/10/2025
📍 Location: A. Farm Studio, 6/4 Nguyen Dang Giai, An Khanh Ward
💠 Language: English only

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Juan Leduc Riley

September — October 2025

Juan Leduc Riley is a Mexican visual artist, editorial coordinator, graphic designer, photographer, and iconographic researcher. His work focuses on the observation and reflection on society, specifically in Mexico City over the past 50 years. He primarily uses photography in various techniques and genres: documentary, archival and collage. To present his work, he creates printed publications conceived as the final outcome. 

Since 2006, he has been a member of the collective Lagartijas Tiradas al Sol. He is also a part of the independent publishing house Ediciones sin resentimiento, and the audiobook publisher Editorial Cascajo. He has collaborated with Mexican universities such as UNAM and UAM, as well as with art institutions including MUAC and MAP. Juan’s work has been shown in group exhibitions at the Carrillo Gil Art Museum, the Tamayo Museum of Contemporary Art, among others.