Conversation : De quelques mouvements — Bétonsalon - Centre d'art et de recherche — Meeting — Slash Paris

Past: Saturday, September 17, 2016 at 3 PM

On Movement

From 1862 to 1954, France has engaged with a policy of “taking pos­ses­sion” (or “pro­tec­tion order”) in South-East Asia, by inte­grating the entirety of Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, as well as a part of ori­ental China to its colo­nial empire. The first ses­sion of the pro­gram Anywhere But Here at Bétonsalon — Center for Art and Research aims at focusing on the move­ment of some indi­vid­uals that were closely related to the his­tory of the Indochinese Union. We will do so by high­lighting the way in which these inti­mate tra­jec­to­ries between South-East Asia and France allow to per­ceive the com­plexity of the poli­cies of devel­op­ment and preser­va­tion of the colo­nial regime, along with the emer­gence of clan­des­tine anti-colo­nial move­ments.

Prince Canh, Nguyen Phuc Canh (1780-1801), is an emblem­atic figure of the rela­tions between South-East Asia and France. As young as five years old, the young prince was sent to Versailles with a del­e­ga­tion in order to con­vince King Louis XVI to sup­port his dynasty. This journey trans­formed South-East Asian polit­ical spec­trum and shaped the con­nex­ions between France and Vietnam.

Speaker: Tran Minh Duc (1982, Hô-Chi-Minh-Ville, Vietnam) is a Vietnamese artist. His interest lies in the Past, its frag­men­tary modes of dif­fu­sion and the way it inter­acts with our pre­sent time. With his artistic prac­tice, he inves­ti­gates Vietnamese urban life char­ac­ter­is­tics. In order to do so, he studies the inter­ac­tion between indi­vidual and col­lec­tive spheres, between ideas such as the local/ internal and for­eign/external. Invited by Bétonsalon — Centre for Art and Research for a res­i­dency in Paris, and in the rela­tion to the exhi­bi­tion Anywhere but Here, Tran Minh Duc will focus on the over­looked details of young prince Canh’s visit to France.

Emperor Hàm Nghi (咸宜, 1871, Huế — 1944, Alger), known as ‘The Anman Prince’ during his exile, resorted to his given name ‘Tu Xuân’ as his pseudonym. In 1885 he became the ruler of Vietnam at 13 years old only for a sole year. After being hold cap­tive three years later, he was sent into exile in Algeria, a deed France was respon­sible for. In Algiers, French admin­is­tra­tion allowed him to study in fine arts with a painting teacher. This newly acquired skill would become cen­tral to his life.

Speaker : Amandine Dabat has a PhD in art his­tory, that she has obtained at the University Paris-Sorbonne (Paris IV). Her thesis dealt with the life and the work of the Vietnamese emperor Hàm Nghi (1871-1944). Amandine Dabat also grad­u­ated in Vietnamese studies at Paris-Diderot University (Paris VII). In the course of her PhD and in rela­tion with her studies, she trav­elled both in Vietman and Algeria, for two years. She has pub­lished dozen of arti­cles and par­tic­i­pated in var­ious inter­na­tional sym­po­siums and con­fer­ences. For two years she has been teaching at the University of Hanoi, Vietnam.

Tran Duc Thao (1917, Hanoi- 1993, Paris) was one of the greatest con­tem­po­rary Marxist philoso­pher in Vietnam. Admitted to the École nor­male supérieure of the Rue d’Ulm, Paris, he passed his phi­los­ophy aggre­ga­tion.
Student of Cavailles, he has been con­sid­ered as one of the best spe­cialist of phe­nomenology and of E. Husserl fol­lowing the pub­li­ca­tion of his book Phenomenology and dialectic mate­ri­alism in 1950. A leader of the Vietnamese dias­pora under the German occu­pa­tion in France, he returned to his country just after the out­break of the Indochina war, where he joined the anti­colo­nial move­ment that sup­ported the national inde­pen­dence. Marxist cri­tique and trans­lator of Hegel and K.Marx in Vietnamese, he was sub­jected to the repres­sion of the Communist party during the Hundred Flowers Campaign (1956-1957).

Speaker : Trinh Van Thao (1938, Sud Viêt-Nam) com­pleted most of his higher learning in France (Sciences Po, Sorbonne). He teaches soci­ology and con­tem­po­rary his­tory in French Universities (Amiens, Lille, Aix Marseille, International Collège of Philosophy in Paris) and for­eign uni­ver­si­ties (in Brazil, Canada, Japan….).
He is emer­itus pro­fessor at AMU.

Along with the entry into war in 1939, the Indochinese admin­is­tra­tion was given the order to send more than 20 000 men from the occu­pied region to the metropolis. Instead of joining the French army, these men joined weapon fac­to­ries. Under the super­vi­sion of the depart­ment of the ‘Main d’Oeuvre Indigène’ (or Indigenous Work Force), depending itself on the Ministry of Labour, these newly arrived men were con­sid­ered as ‘non-spe­cialised work force’. After the defeat of June 1940, these workers would be hired by dif­ferent firms, for a meagre salary equiv­a­lent to one-tenth of the income of a French worker. In the region of Camargue, part of this labour force con­tributed to the imple­men­ta­tion and improve­ment of rice fields which are still exploited nowa­days.

Speaker: Journalist, former reporter of Libération, and cur­rently reporter for Le Monde Diplomatique, Pierre Daum leads his­tor­ical inves­ti­ga­tions on the colo­nial past of France, both in Vietnam and in Algeria. In 2009 he pub­lished Immigrés de force (Forcefully Displaced, pub­lishing Actes Sud), unveiling the hidden his­tory of the ’20 000’ Indochinese workers of the Second World Ward to the public at large. His book has been brought to big screen with Man Lê’s 2013 Công Binh, La Longue nuit indochi­noise (The Long Indochinese Night), and to tele­vi­sion in 2015, with Alain Lewbowicz’s Riz Amer (Bitter Rice).