Forgetting Vietnam

Trinh T. Minh-ha

A conversation between the ancient and the modern, the local and the global, high and low technology, or, in another way, between land and water —elements that underlie the formation of the term country (đất nước)— linked to the space of historical, cultural and digital re-memory. Session that is part of the retrospective dedicated to the feminist and decolonialist scholar that accompanies the exhibition Seen Yet Unseen.

One of the myths about the creation of Vietnam involves the fight between two dragons whose intertwined bodies fell into the South China Sea and formed the winding “S”-shaped coastline of its territory. This lyrical essay, which commemorates the 40th anniversary of the end of the war, is inspired by both the ancient legend and water, which is strongly evoked in all aspects of Vietnamese culture. 

Unlike Minh-ha's classic Surname Viet Given Name Nam (1989), which did not use original footage filmed in the country, in Forgetting Vietnam the images of contemporary life unfold as a dialogue between land and water, the elements that make up the term country. Fragments of text and songs evoke the echoes and traces of a trauma of international proportions. The encounter between the old, linked to the solid earth, and the new, related to the liquid changes in a time of rapid globalization, creates a third space of historical and cultural re-memory: what locals, immigrants and veterans remember from yesterday's stories to comment on today's events. 

Duration: 90' 

Year: 2015 

Version: VOSE