Lost in the Reeds

Linh Pham

Lost in the Reeds is created using C++ in openFrameworks.

Lost in the Reeds depicts the process in which the mat is woven, reed by reed, over thirty minutes. The audio represents the sonic experience while making a reed mat: the sound of reed fields, cutting and gathering the reeds, getting set up and working the wooden loom.

When I was a child growing up in Vietnam, like many households back then, my family used to gather around for dinner on a woven reed mat. Sometimes the dinner would go on for so long that the reeds left imprints on my skin, a memento of sorts for the time shared together.

—Linh Pham

Reed mat weaving is a Vietnamese traditional handicraft but has now become a vanishing practice due to industrialization and a shifting lifestyle. Located in central Vietnam, Cam Ne village was renowned for its colorful and meticulous hand-woven reed mats that were once favored by kings of the Nguyen Dynasty. The mat took one day to weave, reed by reed, and had to be performed by two people using a simple wooden loom. The rustling sound of reeds and the creaking rhythm of the wooden loom was the heartbeat of the village. Now, there is only one household left in the village holding onto the craft.