Beach Pocket

Beach Pocket

First thing I said when a guy took my shirt off was always ⎯ “Am I too skinny?”

From 2019 to 2022, my best friends and I made occasional getaways to the beaches in Vietnam. There we swam, sunbathed, read, danced, and radiated under the sun. There I found comfort in my own skin. There I realized the beauty of our shapes. The whole process is a healing journey for me.

This pocket notebook includes all the portraits and self-portraits that I documented during the time. People are welcomed to use it for their own purposes.

“My boyfriend once said that I was so tiny
That he could carry me in his pocket anywhere
So put me in your pocket
Use me as your time goes by
Use my body as your late-night canvas

Write on me
Compose on me
Fast on me
Slow on me
Release on me
Spit on me
Piss on me
Bleed on me”

Nhân Phan


Hi, this is Nhan.
I work accross media art, programming, and teaching.


PRACTICE

I was born into the Internet era and raised in transition across multiple homes. My life is a scatter of places, faces, and moments - lived physically, digitally, and in between. Dwelling in this hybridity, my work forms a manual for being human under digital conditions. Here, algorithms and devices become agents of emotion and desire, interfering with familiarity and reciprocity, producing both friction and pleasure. I use love, affection, and even cheesiness as critical gestures against the current overly design-driven technological landscape, which increasingly diminishes human touch and moral complexity in pursuit of profit and surface appeal.

My works are developed and presented through a collaborative and performative process. I have created zines in which contributors must reply to one another only through the pages, relinquishing all other forms of daily contact. I have built a keyboard that forms and vocalizes non-existent Vietnamese syllables, urging participants to make noise and make sense together. I have produced video installations that provoke perversity and discomfort, at times prompting audiences to leave the screening altogether. Collaboration, in my practice, is not only a theme but a condition carefully embedded throughout the making.


TEACHING

My teaching is primarily in p5.js and creative coding. I am the founder and teacher at CodeSurfing, the first art-tech collective in Vietnam, advocating for accessibility in technology for local artists. In 2023, I was a Teaching Fellow of the Processing Foundation Fellowship, and in 2024, I continued as a mentor. Prior to this, from 2020 to 2023, I worked as a teaching assistant and later as an instructor at CoderSchool, where I led classes and workshops covering data analysis with Python, computer vision, and generative networks.


CONTACT

You can reach me via my email. My teaching and programs are public via CodeSurfing (IG and Web).