Orlanđỗ KenBarb
2025
Cardboard, used clothing, scrap fabrics, zinc wire, mirror, sewing pins
100 x 10 x 8cm
Cardboard, used clothing, scrap fabrics, zinc wire 100 x 10 x 8cm
The Goethe Institute Hanoi’s hallway
“Hi, Barbie. Hi, Barbie,” the Barbies greet each other. “Hi, Ken. Hi, Ken,” the Kens do the same. Barbie Land, summer 2023—sun-kissed vinyl bodies, rippling waves with no wind, no wrinkled fabric.
“Ai mua ve chai, đồng nát, sắt vụn...” (Who’s buying scrap metal, old goods, discarded iron?)—a woman’s voice rings out at noon on Cao Thắng Street, Saigon. The scrap collector wears a checkered shirt, gloves, and boots; a metal hook tucked behind her motorbike beneath towering stacks of cardboard.
Cardboard sheets are cut into mini clothing patterns collected from the internet, wrapped in fabric, layered, and reflected in a handheld mirror. Orlando gazes at their reflection and calmly says, “Same person. No difference at all, just a different sex.”
(1) Same person. No difference at all, just a different sex. A scene from Orlando (1992), adapted from Virginia Woolf’s novel of the same name. After a seven-day sleep, the beautiful young man Orlando awakens in a female body—Lady Orlando.
Hanoi, winter evening—I buy three cardboard boxes from a scrap yard along Thợ Nhuộm Street. The boxes are still new. I carry them back to Bà-Bầu AIR, cut them into a stack of doll clothing patterns, leaving behind perforated cardboard frames.
This artwork marks the first step in exploring the patterns and materials of doll clothing.