Bà Lương Thị Nhung began weaving at sixteen. She is now seventy-one, and in the years between she has completed twenty sets of funeral garments by hand, one for each member of her family, so that everyone will know exactly what to wear at her funeral. Each morning she sits at her loom and continues, unhurried, because the work has always simply been part of her day.
Her daughter-in-law, Chị So, also began weaving at sixteen. She is fifty-one now, and her own funeral garments are still unfinished. She learned the same techniques, in the same household, but her days are fuller and less predictable: fields, household, family, and weeks when the loom stays untouched. She has no daughter-in-law yet to pass the practice to, and no certainty the next generation of Phúc Sen women will carry it forward.
Photos by Triệu Vân (Trung Duc Nguyen), 2026.
This contrast, between a life measured out in finished garments and one still working toward them, is where Weaving a Day, Mourning a Life: The Mother and Daughter-in-Law of Phúc Sen begins. Curated by Vietnamese visual artist Dala Nguyen, the exhibition is on view at apexart in New York until 24 October 2026.
Phúc Sen, in Cao Bằng province, is known internationally for blacksmithing. Inside those same households, though, Nùng An women sit at looms and weave the cloth that will one day dress the dead, a practice that has stayed almost entirely unseen outside the village. Women here weave, indigo-dye and hand-stitch not only their own funeral garments but those of every household member. These garments have never been for sale, only made over years by someone who loves the person who will eventually wear it. After mourning ends, the cloth returns to daily life, worn again in the fields, at market, at home. What once accompanied death becomes part of living once more.
Photo by Triệu Vân (Trung Duc Nguyen), 2026.
Nguyen brings together four artists working independently across photography, moving image, sound and textile installation, resisting any single, authoritative account. The photographic series Weaving and Mourning, by Trung Duc Nguyen, forms the visual foundation of the show, shot during fieldwork in Phúc Sen and lingering on gestures easily missed elsewhere: hands drawing thread before sunrise, small irregularities in cloth woven between other duties, the texture of indigo-dyed fabric against skin. A moving image work follows the rhythms of both women's lives, while a multi-channel sound installation built from field recordings layers the pulse of the looms with village ambience and oral history. A suspended textile sculpture in indigo-dyed cloth and thread takes up fragility and resilience through scale and material weight.
Photo by Triệu Vân (Trung Duc Nguyen), 2026.
Chị So's unfinished garments are an honest record of a life in which many responsibilities compete for the same hours, and the tradition survives, thinner than it once was, wherever those hours can still be found.
Photo by Triệu Vân (Trung Duc Nguyen), 2026.
Grief passes into indigo, indigo passes into everyday wear, and the pattern goes on being worn long after the loom has stopped for the day. It is a fitting story for this time of year, as the light turns and one season gives way to the next: proof that an ending, made with enough care, can become the beginning of something else. Bà Nhung has finished her twenty sets. Across the gallery, Chị So is still weaving hers. And in the words of artist and curator Dala Nguyen, "Tomorrow, she will weave again".
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Further Information:
Weaving a Day, Mourning a Life is on view at apexart, 291 Church Street, New York, Tuesday to Saturday, 11am–6pm, until 24 October 2026, and online.
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Image Credits:
All photos by Triệu Vân (Trung Duc Nguyen), Weaving and Mourning series, 2026.