Vagina Talks about queer, gender and movie at “Vuon Lai”
Sat 4 Jan 2020, 2:30 pm – 5 pm
Gac Cam
60 Alley Tho Quan, Kham Thien, Ha Noi
From Hanoi Grapevine
The PAN – Hanoi Grapevine Proactive Audience Network invites you to a talk, writing and drawing experience on the topic about the diverse of gender and sexual – together with Vuon Lai, Ban Lon and Hanoi Grapevine.
Queer Forever is the first queer art festival in Vietnam, founded in 2013 by independent artist Nguyen Quoc Thanh. Mr. Thanh is also the co-founder of Nha San collective – a pioneering contemporary art center of many important artists in Vietnam. Ban Lon – Vagina Talks is an art and community education project founded by artist and curator Dinh Thi Nhung since 2015. Both projects provide discussions, also interesting and meaningful expressions on topics that are considered “subtle”, reflecting personal feelings, both private and very universal, reflecting socio-cultural issues through the lens of gender diversity arts (Queer Forever !) and by looking at the female genitals (Ban Lon).
Among those talk shows with the inspiring characters that PAN and Hanoi Grapevine have held so far, this event is probably the most special, because participants will not only talk, but also watching movie, writing, drawing with artists Nguyen Quoc Thanh and Dinh Nhung.
Content
Introduce about Queer Forever over the years. Introduce about Vuon Lai (artist Nguyen Quoc Thanh)
Watch Lost in Paradise movie’s excerpts and comment about it (artist Nguyen Quoc Thanh)
Introduction about Ban Lon (artist Dinh Nhung)
Drawing, writing and exchanging (everyone)
The event took place on a bright new year day, 2:30 pm – 5:00 pm in the afternoon of 4 Jan, 2020 at Gac Cam, 60 alleys of Tho Quan, Kham Thien, Hanoi.
The talk is an event organized by proactive audience network PAN – Hanoi Grapevine in cooperation with the Vuon Lai – Wonderland.
Free exchange session for all students over 18 years old.
More information
PAN’s proactive audience network – Hanoi Grapevine is an initiative of Hanoi Grapevine, was presented in May 2019 to build a community of audience who appreciate, feel and spread art and culture values in away that has higher quality and more profound. The initiative is sponsored by the British Council, the European Commission and the Vietnam Creative Cultural Space Project.
About the artist
Nguyen Quoc Thanh is an independent artist in Hanoi, and a co-founder of Nha San Collective. In 2013 he founded Queer Forever !, the first queer art festival in Vietnam that later became an art project aimed at creating a space of love and knowledge about queer, through activities such as exhibitions, film screenings, meetings, talk show, markets.
Queer Forever! works by connecting with individuals, groups and arts organizations and advocating for LGBTQ rights. In 2019, Thanh organized the Vuon Lai Su Xo Dieu Ky (Garden of Jasmine – Wonderland) project, exploring ways of community participation, interaction, and creativity that contribute to the development of the queer movie heritage in Vietnam. Vuon Lai’s program includes:
– Watch movies and discuss daily in Hanoi, Hue and Saigon
– Compilation of art books on Vietnamese movie queer
– Developing digital materials on Vietnamese movie queer
The project is inspired by the idea of folklore, considering the heritage of Vietnamese film queer as all types of animations made by Vietnamese or Vietnamese queer people, or referring to their lives.
The project has the participation of counterparts Ban Lon – Vagina Talks, cinema is queer, CSAGA, It’s T Time, Le Papillon – Buon Butterfly, Mo Do, NextGEN, Nha San Collective, Quai De, Quan Cam, San Art , Center for Movie Talent Development (TPD), Hanoi Grapevine media partner, and supported by British Council’s FamLab Foundation
Dinh Nhung founded and curated for the Project Ban Lon – Vagina Talks. She collects slang words used by the Vietnamese queer communities, and when starting Ban Lon – Vagina Talks project, Nhung is more interested in collecting words related to sex. Nhung published Chi Ban Lon – Queer & Sexuality Lexicon, introducing slang words often used to refer to the sexual parts of the human body. Nhung is an artist, curator and queer activist. She has been involved in the Unstraight project series for many years, in Burma, Serbia, Cambodia, Russia and Vietnam. Nhung used to organize the Queer Forever! festival the first year of 2013 and until now continuously participate in activities of Queer Forever!
Ban Lon – Vagina Talks is an art and community education project in which everyone involved is invited to share, create, express thoughts and feelings about vagina as well as share terms people say. about sex. Although the project was cherished in 2012, inspired by the plays of The Vagina Monologues, but until September 2015 that it began to really start from drawing on ipads. After that, the expression methods became more diverse due to the creativity of the participants such as paint, paper folding, sewing, animation, etc. So far, the project has done a lot of workshops in Vietnam and abroad. Apart from three small displays at the queer market, the project has conducted two exhibitions in Hanoi and Saigon and produced the dictionary Chi Ban Lon.
Up to now, the project has continued, but towards collecting linguistic expressions of sexuality and performing workshops and “collective performances” rather than individual meetings. /
