Khô Mực Studio Releases Surreal Calendar Featuring Art From 12 Local Artists

For the 2023 calendar, 'Robots vs. Flowers,' twelve young Vietnamese artists were each given a month and tasked with creating an image responding to the question: "Can technology and nature survive together?"

Some of the artists created fantastical narratives for their months. For example, May's artist, Same, depicted a future war between a flower army and an invasion of robots. Meanwhile, for September, Cao Quốc Huy imagined a world where humans had gone extinct and robots revived them in the same way humans are now considering bringing woolly mammoths back to life.

The full pages for May (left) and September (right).

For June, Tùng Anh pictured a future dream world where a lonely robot wanders around amidst poisonous flowers.

Some of the artists took less narrative-driven approaches and filled their two-page spread with flowers and trees growing amidst wires, nobs and droids as exemplified by Jim (January)'s depiction of a plant sprouting from a robot's unplugged head.

Nguyễn Thanh Vũ offers a harmonious response to the prompt with a blooming tree dropping petals on a sidewalk traveled by an advanced bot for August.

Given many of the month's abstract interpretations of a calendar as a functional object, one isn't likely to use Robots and Flowers to keep track of appointments or schedules, but it's pretty enough to hang on one's wall as a work of art. 

Thong Dinh's July would brighten up the dankest wall space.

All the pages are printed using Khô Mực Studio's riso ink derived from soybeans. The bright, low-cost ink strikes a balance between expressive raw aesthetics and affordable production. Since its founding in 2018, the Saigon-based studio has been using risograph printing for a variety of projects and collaborations with local artists, including an art exhibition featuring works responding to ghost month. 

Ngọc Hải's December showcases a greener future Saigon.

The Riso Calendar 2023 is a limited product. You can view the entire collection and purchase it at the website.