Anh Dao Ha -May 11, 2022
When I Met You I Almost Missed You: an ad-hoc cafe experience inspired by Vietnamese romance and kitsch aesthetics. The space consists of phins (Vietnamese drip coffee makers), clothes inspired by Vietnamese traditional garments and street markets, and street food stools.
These three items come together to build a Vietnamese cafe that is built from my memory of the Vietnamese spaces of my childhood, and converge into a sort of fantasy world. Clothes are hung everywhere to create the parameters of the space, with stools and phins for customers to enjoy coffee and contemplate romance, and with servers wearing these costumes to create a full immersive experience.
What makes a space Vietnamese and why do I remember them as an assemblage of objects? It is the ad-hoc nature of Vietnamese businesses that create forms of assemblage. And that is because most Vietnamese businesses are fashioned from what is immediately available so this creates a mixing of utilities and objects within a single space. My project combines clothing and coffee in a seemingly random fashion in order to pay homage and stay consistent with Vietnamese ad-hoc cafes.
When I Met You I Almost Missed You is a title taken from a Lynda Trang Dai music video, Supermarket Love Affair. Kitsch Vietnamese karaoke videos such as this are what I draw from aesthetically to design these pieces.
These photos are not only product documentation, but are also an extension of this project. They embody the collage like quality and ad-hoc nature of the cafe itself. They also serve as a documentation of my process. Though I am not finished making all of the products for the space, I can still imagine how it will come together through photographic collage.