Cà Phê Nhỏ - 'Oil + Water'

Down a narrow hẻm running parallel to the railway line in Phú Nhuận, Cà Phê Nhỏ — "small cafe" — has been open for seventeen years, and every one of them shows. The owner has spent a lifetime collecting: old laptops, iPhones long out of production, Vietnamese statues and relics, odd bits of memorabilia that have slowly stopped being objects in the cafe and started being the walls of it. Terracotta jars, a carved dragon, a pair of small blue guardian figures by the door — everything crowded in, nothing matching, all of it somehow exactly in place.

I found it by chance on a photography walk down the alley, drawn in by the checkerboard tile floor glowing under the string lights. It's the kind of place that could only exist after seventeen years of not throwing anything away.

This print is a 1 of only 2 made, artist proof, hand carved and painted from a 30x40cm woodblock.