Globalisation has affected the perceptions and presentations of contemporary art, exposing new grounds within the art world. If any characteristic of contemporary art directly entwines with the geopolitical transformations of the past three decades, it is the biennale phenomenon. Reflecting the politics of a global world in constant development, biennales have come to play an increasingly significant role in responding to the immediacy and flexibility of contemporary art’s development.

Prevailing art historical discourse often briefly references the audience as being participants in an artwork, but seldom goes deeper into the individual viewer’s experience. This study proposes a new method of analysis through the use of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). A qualitative method of data collection, IPA allows the reader to understand a chosen individual subject’s reception of a particular event, or ‘phenomena’, from their perspective and specific context(s).

Introduction

Three Seasons, by Vietnamese-American film director Tony Bui, was released in the United States in 1999. Bui left Vietnam with his family at the age of two, following the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, and spent his formative years in the United States. Belonging to the significant ‘1.5 generation’, Bui was exposed, along with his contemporaries, to the way the United States viewed and represented the war in mainstream culture. That is, the war became, in its immediate aftermath, “a resource for the American culture industry”.