Bui Cong Khanh (Danang, b. 1972) is a Hoian-based Vietnamese artist whose visually and conceptually-sophisticated practice ponders social issues in Vietnam today. Khanh uses local Vietnamese materials such as ceramics, textile, and carved timber as covert clues to critical significance. His work is in major public collections in Asia, Australia, Europe and the United States.

The pair of chairs mimic a traditional Vietnamese interior to uncover North- South strain and personal memory’s frequent contradiction of official historical narratives, both traced to the War. Khanh probes these two stresses by producing hand-carved chairs (Northern Chair, Southern Chair), table (The Wound Has Not Healed), all imbedded with military iconography—realistically depicted and scaled grenades, riffles, uniforms, barbed-wire, medals. Both northern and southern army paraphernalia feature recognisably in the jackfruit-wood carving, their balanced inclusion metaphorically serving to both confront and reconcile North and South Vietnam.

The furniture is conceptualised by the artist and built and carved by a Hoian master cabinet-maker, marks a departure in Khanh’s practice both in form and function. Chairs and tables are utilitarian and designed for viewers’ usage. In this respect Jackfruit-wood Grenades’ viewer- engagement through the conflation of beauty and pedestrian usage perpetuates Southeast Asian contemporary art’s encroachment into the everyday living space as a means of mobilising audience attention.