Across the Forest was going to be an outdoor music festival set in bucolic Da Lat. The organizer, Space Monkies, wanted to keep things intimate, and capped the number of tickets sold at 30. The festival drew on international talent, like Indian experimental rock group Kuru Circus & Orchestra.
Then, days before the festival was set to begin on December 8, the event was relocated from the forest to a coffee shop and homestay in Da Lat. Space Monkies refunded all ticket sales and announced the venue change, but on the first day of the festival, December 10, the event looked less like a festival than a house party with a stage. Musicians played to other musicians who watched, talked among themselves, expanded their horizons, ate and hung out. In place of a firm lineup of musical acts, musicians appeared to start whenever was convenient for them and performed with whomever was available.
A hand-painted sign directed would-be festival goers to the relocated Across the Forest event, which was now housed in a discreet building at the bottom a mountain accessed by a sharply declining road. During the first night of the event, only one non-musician showed up.
It looked like a project that had failed to launch, but the festival, and what appears to have been shaky execution, are part of the Space Monkies’ ethos and mission in the world.
“We can build it to perfection, or make it disappear, we don’t care much about what people think, we just do our jobs,” Space Monkies organizer An Hoang told Saigoneer through an interpreter.
Photo by Anh Thi.
Across the Forest was effectively canceled and downgraded to a house party by design, as an expression of the chaos the Space Monkies find most artistically honest.
“We gave birth to the denial of perfections, there is no perfection in this world,” Hoang said.
So, according to her, if you see Across the Forest as a failure, you don’t get it.
Hoang does not profile like the mastermind of a chaos operator.
A thin, bespectacled woman in her mid-twenties who often wears an aloof expression sometimes punctuated by a slight smile, like she’s in on a joke, looks like someone at home in a coffee shop with a tome. Visible tattoos might give you the impression of an artist.
You’d have to start a conversation with her to figure out that she’s working on a very different level than almost everyone else.
“We come from different places in society…that gather around to become Space Monkies because we’ve got something broken in us, something that needs to be fixed in our heart,” she said in Vietnamese. “In the process of becoming Space Monkies…(we) heal our hearts.”
Photo by Jet Tung.
Hoang does not claim a leadership title in the Space Monkies, in spite of all suggestions that this is the case.
This kind of opaqueness characterizes the Space Monkies generally. Hoang said the group has somewhere between one (her) and 15 members. They may have organized the Across the Forest event, but Hoang said the group is not a formal organization; it is simply a name.
She shared that the name Space Monkies comes from the film Fight Club, specifically the scene where Brad Pitt’s character, chaos operator Tyler Durden, is training a group that will terrorize the city in the service of an anti-corporate and anti-materialist message. Any individual who participates in the work is “like a monkey ready to be shot into space!” Pitt’s character exclaims. “Ready to sacrifice himself for the greater good.”
Similarly, Space Monkies is a group whose work intends to push back against what Hoang calls the “cannibalization” of art and artists.
They are creating “a place where artists don’t limit [sic] about profits and customer, they just create what they want to create,” Hoang said. It’s for this reason that Across the Forest had a limited number of attendees and the organizers generally tried to maintain low visibility. Raising the barrier to entry meant the event only drew the committed, Hoang opined.
“Space Monkies sees that those artists that rely on fame create easy spectators,” she said.
What is Space Monkies’ next act?
Asking the question may get you an answer heavy in speculation and light on plans.
In an interview that mainly sought to answer this question, Hoang talked about the ephemeral nature of artistic realities before alluding to plans to create a pop-up cinema in the countryside. The Space Monkies would show a film in a harbor if it’s realized, she said.
In Saigon, she talked about an idea to offer similar surprise film showings at bus stops, features that would be curated based on the location in the town that they would be shown.
But they might do something else, too.
In a certain sense, planning is antithetical to the aim of Space Monkies, which is in part to create a zone for spontaneity and surprise. Across the Forest was converted from a music festival to a pressure-free evening of alcohol and mirth with a warm, attentive audience in a unique venue. Musicians played as long as they wanted to for other artists, many of whom were friends, aside from being creative peers.
Photo by Anh Thi.
This is different from Quest, the Hanoi event that was canceled days before it was scheduled to occur in late November.
Hoang said Quest was on their mind when they made the decision to relocate Across the Forest. Quest’s cancellation made music events around the country vulnerable, and she said changing the festival was a protective measure to ensure it would take place unimpeded.
The changes, however, didn’t go over well with everyone involved. Hoang shared that some musicians who performed at Across the Forest were disappointed with the festival’s execution.
Despite that, Hoang seems resolute in ensuring Space Monkies are beholden to nothing besides the group’s intended purpose: to create a space for thoughtful art and experiences to be enjoyed in an unstructured manner.
Space Monkies did not collect any money from Across the Forest, Hoang said, adding, “but it’s like a part of us now, it’s part of our heart and soul.”
Jesús Lopez Gomez is a journalist and general assignment reporter by training, Jesús is a U.S. national living in Ho Chi Minh City.
