Andy Dinh
Cardboard fort evokes memories of being safe
Andy Dinh works with cardboard and drawing to recreate the experience of childhood forts.
Did you build forts when you were a kid? Or play a version of “the floor is lava” where to be safe you leapt from one piece of furniture to the next? Andy Dinh did. Now he’s aiming to invoke your childhood memories of such play through his artwork.
One of his projects is designed to give viewers a sense of remembering the past and imagining the future. His work explores the human condition through losing the past and forgetting. His larger-than-life fort, which contains a version of the lava game, is an installation that uses cardboard and drawing.
“I want to create an experience that recreates the past such as when you were a kid and made forts,” says Dinh. “That confined space of your own—which you may have imagined as a rocket ship, a car, or anything—was a space where you felt safe.”
Dinh has exhibited at Calgary’s New Gallery and Art Central and has participated in the Market Collective. He is considering pursuing commercial-based art and creating art for exhibitions in artist-run centres or galleries.
“Art is about aesthetics, but when you can plant a seed in someone’s mind—an idea—it’s a strong tool,” he says. “You can use it to learn new things. Art has the ability to make people aware and give a conceptual pleasure that is sublime.”
