Art Festival “Queer Forever”

Queer Art Festival: 14 – 29 Dec 2013
Nhasan Collective, Goethe Institut, Manzi

From the organizer:

Queer Forever! is the first queer art festival in Vietnam, which connects contemporary art and Vietnamese culture with queer sensibilities. The festival is taking place from 14th to 29th December, 2013 in Hanoi. Queer Forever! will introduce art works of five contemporary artists and a series of lectures and discussions around the topics of queer and gender issues in film and cinema, literature, and visual art.

The festival’s objective is to create dialogues and encourage critical thinking about different topics of sexual diversities and cultural and social issues through arts and interdisciplinary dialogues among researchers, social activists, artists and writers, gender diverse communities, and especially marginalized sexual minorities and the general public.

The Vietnamese LGBTQ community has recently gained attention and is raising its voice over equality.
Queer Forever! aims to become a place of exchanging knowledge, research, and experiences among different creative communities such as art, film and cinema, literature, social science, and social development with researchers, social workers, artists, LGBTQ community and audiences.

On December 14th, renowned film director Phan Đăng Di will open the festival by giving a talk about Gay topics in Vietnamese Contemporary Cinema: Rebellion within Frames at the Goethe Institute Hà Nội. Later that day, there will be a screening of Love Man Love Woman, a film by video artist Nguyễn Trinh Thi, followed by discussion on Đạo Mẫu and the first LGBTQ community in Vietnamese culture. Marcus Mạnh Cường Vũ, director of Yxine Film Festival, will present YxineFF Loves Queer Forever! on December 15th at Nhà Sàn Collective. The event includes four short films that were nominated for the YxineFF Rainbow Heart Awards. The audience will have a chance to ask the directors questions.

In the two week long festival’s program, Trần Ngọc Hiếu, a Linguistics and Literature professor at the Hanoi National University of Education, will share his thoughts on The Representation of Gay People in Vietnamese Literature: From Disguises to Coming out in Recent Autobiographies. Art researcher Đỗ Tường Linh will talk about SameSex Desires in Contemporary Vietnamese Paintings, using artist Trương Tân’s work as an example. Artist Nguyễn Tân Hoàng (PhD, assistant professor of Bryn Mawr College, USA) will present A View from the Bottom: Asian American Masculinity and Sexual Representation. A discussion with photographer Maika Elan about Photography and Representation of LGBT People in Vietnam will end our program on December 29th.

From December 20th to 29th, 2013, Queer Forever! will present artworks by artists Gabby Quỳnh Anh Miller, Nguyễn Tân Hoàng, Việt Lê, Nguyễn Quốc Thành, and Lu Yang at Nhà Sàn Collective.
Born in Vietnam, artists Việt Lê and Nguyễn Tân Hoàng followed their family to the US at a very young
age. Their works look at the representation of Asian American masculinity in media and popular culture to deal with race and ethnicity issues.

Gabby Quỳnh Anh Miller, an emerging VietnameseAmerican artist interested in silk paintings and landscape paintings, is torn between a far away motherland and her home—as she put it, “A promised land for the Others, who are dreamers, radicals, and sexual deviants.”

Vietnamese artist Nguyễn Quốc Thành deconstructs clothing as symbols of masculinity and power in
society. And he reconstructs it again, through quiet tiny stitches of hand embroidery and sewing.

Chinese artist Lu Yang’s powerful futuristic video and photographic works are related to gender, science, and popular culture. Her works question the law of propagation of natural beings.

Artworks by Lu Yang, Việt Lê, and Nguyễn Tân Hoàng have been exhibited in many contemporary art
centers and museums around the world.

Uptodate information about festival artists, lecturers, and schedule can be found at:
queerforeverfestival.tumblr.com
facebook.com/Qforeverfestival

PROGRAM
Sat. 14th December 2013 OPENING OF THE FESTIVAL
3.00 PM Goethe Institut, Hanoi
“Gay topics in Vietnamese contemporary cinema: “rebellion” within frames”
by film director Phan Đăng Di
Moderator: Marcus Mạnh Cường Vũ, Festival President of YxineFF

5.00 PM Coffee break

6.00 PM Goethe Institut, Hanoi
“Love Man Love Woman” – a film by filmmaker and video artist Nguyễn Trinh Thi
“Đạo Mẫu and the first LGBTQ community in Vietnamese culture”
screening with a discussion with filmmaker and video artist Nguyễn Trinh Thi, Dr. Phạm Quỳnh Phương
(iSEE), and doctor Vũ Đức Việt researcher in field of sexuality and an young medium of Đạo Mẫu
Moderator: Dr. Đặng Hoàng Giang (CECODES)

Sun. 15th December 2013
6.00 PM Nhà Sàn Collective
YxineFF loves Queer Forever!
Marcus Mạnh Cường Vũ, YxineFF’s Festival Director introduces best short documentaries about LGBT
of the YxineFF festival:
1. Trò chuyện với người bạn thân nhất của tôi/ Talking to my best friend (2013), Nguyễn Lê, documentary, 12’59”, Vietnam
2. Daughter and the Palmae Blossom (2012), Polen Ly, documentary, 15’30”, Cambodia
3. Bopha Pitorng Chomnas Tekpleang/Two girls against the rain (2012), documentary, Sao Sopheak,
11’15”, Cambodia
4. Bạn là ai?/ Who are you? (2012), Hoàng Huyền My, documentary,19’29”, Vietnam

Fri. 20th December 2013
6.00 PM Nhà Sàn Collective
“QUEER FOREVER!” Opening reception
introduces artworks by artists Việt Lê, Nguyễn Tân Hoàng, Lu Yang, Gabby Quỳnh Anh Miller and Nguyễn Quốc Thành
Nhà Sàn Collective | 21/12 – 29/12 | 2.00 PM – 7.00 PM

Sun. 22nd December 2013
6.00 PM Nhà Sàn Collective
“A View from the Bottom: Asian American Masculinity and Sexual Representation”
by Nguyễn Tân Hoàng, video artist, assistant professor (Bryn Mawr College, USA)
Guest speakers: doctor Nguyễn Anh Thuận (Director of Safe Living), researcher Hoàng Tùng Lâm
Moderator: Nguyễn Quốc Thành (Nhà Sàn Collective)
* To take part in the talk, please register via email: [email protected]

Fri. 27th December 2013
7.00 PM – Manzi Art Space
“The representation of gay people in Vietnamese literature: from disguises to recent coming out autobiographies”
by Dr. Trần Ngọc Hiếu (Hanoi National University of Education)
Moderator: Lê Quang, literary translator
Sun. 29th December 2013
3.00 PM Manzi Art Space
“Same sex desires in Contemporary Vietnamese Paintings”
by researcher Đỗ Tường Linh (DOCLAB)
Guest speaker: artist Trần Hậu Yên Thế
Moderator: artist Trần Lương

7.00 PM Manzi Art Space
“Photography and representation of LGBT people in Vietnam”

a talk with awards winning photographer Maika Elan and Lương Thế Huy (iSEE’s Technical Officer in field of LGBT Rights)
by Nguyễn Quốc Thành (Nhà Sàn Collective)