Have you ever crossed the small houses in Hanoi’s Old Quarter, the rows of shop houses in Cho Lon, or a Saigonese villa from the French colonial period, and imagined,’Who are the people who live here?’; ‘What is life like for people who used to, or are still living there?’; ‘How is their life, hope, and dream reflected by the interior of their house?’. The inaugural workshop Moving Reels #1 invites you to explore these questions with our first art video selection from India, ‘Nostalgia for the Future’ (directed by Avijit Mukul Kishore and Rohan Shivkumar ) to revisit the architectural stories of Vietnam and the intersection between Vietnamese and Indian society.
This video looks at four distinct imaginations of homes and bodies across examples of buildings made over the period of a century. It explores the relationships between these spaces and the bodies that were imagined to inhabit them, and uses these connections as vantage points to analyze how the concept of Indian modern architecture intertwines with the collective shaping and reinventing of a nation and/by its citizens.
Register for the discussion that follows this video screening, led by Dr Shweta Kishore, film studies scholar and curator, and Mel Schenk, architectural historian based in Ho Chi Minh City. This discussion will focus on how cinema and architecture are deployed for the nation-building project in Vietnam. How has documentary shaped the public’s current understanding of national history, and what alternative forms can it take beside the traditionally propagandic format? How is ‘modernity’ experienced and practiced in Vietnamese architecture post 1975 and/or post- Doi Moi period, and how is architecture seen as a tool for building national identity and solidifying Vietnamese citizens’ national consciousness? These are just some of the guiding questions that will take place in the discussion, which will draw materials from both the film and the participants’ personal experience and research.
Due to seat limitation, please register here to secure your seats.
What is ‘Moving Reels’?
‘Moving Reels’ is a series of workshops that explores the diverse functions of cinema in public culture, both as text and practice. This program aims to be a forum for fostering cross-cultural dialogue between Vietnam and different geographical contexts, engaging how citizens and artists use cinema to reflect upon, and critique, transformations between society and the individual, examining how this relationship is of impact on their physical and psychological environment. For example, the first year’s program, which focuses on the cinematic synergies between Vietnam and South Asia, developed and curated by Dr Shweta Kishore, will look at Vietnam and India’s shared discourse between public architecture and nation building in urban life. Structured as a video screening followed by guided discussions around relevant themes, the ‘Moving Reels’ workshops envisage educational outcomes that contribute to constructing meaningful viewing cultures and cinema spaces in Ho Chi Minh City. A chance to look at our interwoven world through a cinematic kaleidoscope!
This program aims to foster commonalities with people near and far, looking at our shared ‘materials’ that stem from intertwined historical circumstances, social upheaval, and cultural context, all through the language of the moving image. More importantly, The Factory wishes to activate an interdisciplinary thinking community for visual artists, filmmakers, architects, anthropologists, and other cultural workers in Vietnam, pushing the boundaries, understanding and relevance of cinema today.
—
*Please purchase entrance ticket at the Arts Centre reception. This fee gives you access to our exhibitions, reading room and public programs. For further information, please click here.
**Participants of the event allow The Factory and co-organizer (if applicable) to use their images and statements as documentary for the program, for non-commercial purposes such as: archive, press, media, promotion on our website, Facebook etc
