Vietnam - case study 1 越南 - 個案研究 1

Que Faire

Video installation by Nguyễn Trinh Thi

Cinematography: Jamie Maxtone-Graham.

2012

Hà Nội, Vietnam

Project Description:

Artist statement: “Undressing as an act of thinking.” Que Faire is a sequel to Unsubtitled. The series includes Unsubtitled, Que Faire, and Solo for a Choir.

“In this series, I explore possibilities for combining video installation with performance art, and for possibilities of preserving differences of individuals while creating a sense of collective experience. Thematically, I continue to study the issues and reflect on the history and development of the role and position of the artist in the Vietnamese society. These issues relate to Vietnam’s problems concerning censorship and artist freedom expression. This personal interest also had led me to work on a long-term film project about Nhan Van-Giai Pham – the suppressed literary movement of the 1950s and the only instance of widespread intellectual dissidence ever to occur in North Vietnam – and its legacy of dissent in Vietnamese art over the past five decades.”

About Nguyễn Trinh Thi:

Nguyễn Trinh Thi is a Hanoi-based experimental filmmaker and moving image / media artist whose practice over the last 10 years has consistently engaged with the history and memory of Vietnam, with a great interest in finding innovative ways to connect cinema and the moving image with sound practices, performance and alternative forms of story-telling.

Image captions:

Still shot of Que Faire. Courtesy of the artist.