Location : Cinematique, 22A Hai Ba Trung Street, Hanoi
Timings : 20:00 - 21:00
Date : 02.06.12
It features Nguyen Quang Thang the scion of a long line of calligraphers from the village of Phi Tho outside Hanoi. From his studies as an archivist in the Institute of Han Nom Research he now explores through his art the ramifications of a culture being lost through a script that is no longer read as Nom was replaced by the current Romanization of Vietnamese.
He also reflects on the unsettling ambiguity of using scripts introduced by conquerors firstly by the Chinese then the Latin script of the French We follow him unearthing ancient examples of the Nom scripts trying to find the original Vietnamese words behind them and then see him in his studio resurrecting the writing into a new art form and as a Vietnamese reclaiming his culture.
