Co-constructed Documentary Film: collaboration, dialogue, and performance in researching gender and contemporary art in Vietnam

ABSTRACT

How can documentary as visual research method create a relay between feminist scholarship and the goals of feminist struggle? The use of co-constructed documentary responds to the three key concerns of feminist research: the situated nature of knowledge; the critique of hierarchical knowledge; and the intention towards emancipatory action. In other words, documentary-making opens out from a “discourse of sobriety” or representation of historical truth to encompass material transformative potential not merely through representational instruments but re-organized methods, relationships, and practices which critique documentary’s social relations of power. The methodological challenge and opportunity involve the re-framing of documentary participant as collaborator with a stake in decision-making and documentary construction. Taken further, this agenda complicates the notion of documentary authorship and related concepts of creative autonomy, individuality and artist “voice.” In this paper, I take up these questions to argue that dialogic authoring in contemporary art theory and practice drawing upon Mikhail Bakhtin and Grant Kester) provides the theoretical foundation of an interactional concept of art generated between co-participants.

KEYWORDS:

• Feminist filmmaking
• co-constructed research
• documentary film
• dialogic art
• performance
• Vietnamese contemporary art

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The research team includes Shweta Kishore, Andrew Stiff, Nguyễn Phước Bảo Châu and Quỳnh Anh together with four artists: Nguyễn Đức Diễm Quỳnh (Quỳnh Lam), Nguyễn Thúy Hằng, Pham Thuy Hồng and Uyên-Minh Nguyễn.

2. In his histories of Vietnamese contemporary art, Le Viet (2012) notes that Socialist Realism, silk and lacquer paintings remain the dominant genres officially recognised by the state.

3. Pham Thuy Hồng. Interview by Shweta Kishore. Ha Noi. May 12 2019

4. Between 2012–2016 for instance, of the 17 National Art awards awarded by the state, thematically “safe” subjects of landscape, legendary figures and leaders, and iconic representation of war predominated. The two major art prizes awarded by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism are the Ho Chi Minh City Prize and the State Prize. They are awarded at infrequent intervals of 4–5 years.

5. Bui, N.H and Pham Trung. 2012. Vietnamese Contemporary Art: 1990–2010. Hanoi: nowledge Publishing House

6. Thanh Nien. March 15 2016. “Woman artists’ voices in a men’s world.” Accessed September 20 2018 http://www.thanhniennews.com/arts-culture/woman-artists-voices-in-a-mens-world 59898.html

7. Nguyễn, Thúy Hằng. Interview by Shweta Kishore. Ho Chi Minh City, July 7 2018.

8. Pham Thuy Hồng. Interview by Shweta Kishore. Ha Noi. May 12 2019

9. Grant Kester (2005) provides examples of art collective Wochenklausur, and artist Suzanne Lacy who creatively stage collaborative encounters inside and outside galleries with purposes of addressing socio-political deficits.

10. Nguyễn, Thúy Hằng. Interview by Shweta Kishore. Ho Chi Minh City, July 7 2018

11. Nguyễn Đức Diễm Quỳnh (Quỳnh Lam), Interview by Shweta Kishore. Ho Chi Minh City, June 8 2018

12. Nguyễn Đức Diễm Quỳnh (Quỳnh Lam), in conversation with a passer-by, Ha Noi. May 30 2018

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the RMIT University (Vietnam) [Grant number 6].

Notes on contributors

Shweta Kishore

Shweta Kishore lectures in Screen and Media at RMIT University. She is a documentary practitioner and founder-curator of Moving Reels: A Social Dialogue at the Factory Contemporary Arts Centre in Ho Chi Minh City. Shweta is the author of Indian Documentary Film and Filmmakers: Independence in Practice (2018). Shweta’s research on Indian documentary, documentary ethics, feminist film, and activist film festivals has appeared in Third Text, Bioscope, Camera Obscura, Feminist Media Studies, Studies in Documentary Film and Senses of Cinema. E-mail: [email protected]

Andrew Stiff

Andrew Stiff lectures within the School of Communication & Design at RMIT University Viet Nam. He specialises in experimental design and experimental moving image. After working with the experimental digital design collective D- Fuse, he ran a master’s degree in digital art, at Camberwell college of Arts, University of the Arts London. He is currently undertaking a practice-based PhD at RMIT University, in the School of Graduate Research: Architecture and Design. Andrew work has been shown internationally in the US, Australia, Hong Kong, Japan and in South East Asia, as well venues in Europe. E-mail: [email protected]