A conversation on art, epistemic violence, and refusal

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Acknowledgment

We thank the IFJP Conversations Co-editors, Natália Maria Félix de Souza and Catia C. Confortini, for the opportunity to discuss art in relation to epistemic violence/justice and for their very helpful editorial suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Quỳnh N. Phạm is an Assistant Professor in the Department of International Studies at the University of San Francisco. Her publications include “Enduring Bonds: Politics and Life Outside Freedom as Autonomy,” Alternatives 38:1 (2013), Meanings of Bandung: Postcolonial Orders and Decolonial Visions (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016, coedited with Robbie Shilliam), and other work on colonialism, war, and politics of decolonization.

Linh Tường Đỗ is an art researcher and curator based in Hà Nội, Việt Nam. She received a B.A. in Art History and Art Criticism at Việt Nam University of Fine Arts and an M.A. in Contemporary Art and Art Theory of Asia and Africa at SOAS (University of London), UK. She is the co-founder and artistic director of Six Space in Hà Nội (http://sixspace.vn/). She has engaged in the art, cultural, and civil society scenes in Việt Nam, Southeast Asia, and beyond. Since 2005, she has collaborated with various art spaces, galleries, and institutions in different roles such as writing, researching, curating, teaching, and translating. Currently, she is a researcher for Site and Space in Southeast Asia, the archive researcher for Vietnamese contemporary art at Singapore Art Museum, and a fellow at SEAΔ Mekong Cultural Hub 2018–2019. Her most recent curated and co-curated projects include “To Edit Is to Resist! Publishing as an Act of Resistance” (Salon du Livre d'Art des Afriques) at La Colonie, Paris, France (2018); Arts Space Network Residency at Asia Culture Center, Gwangju, Korea (2018); “No War, No Vietnam” at Galerie Nord, Berlin, Germany; “Museum of the Mind” – solo show by Phan Anh, Hồ Chí Minh City, Việt Nam (2018); “SEAcurrents,” London, UK (2017); “Behind the Terrain” – traveling exhibition in Indonesia, Việt Nam, & Japan (2017–2018).

Notes

1 https://www.siteandspace.org/.

2 https://mekongculturalhub.org/portfolio/sead-program/.

3 https://asia-art-activism.net/.

4 La Colonie (The Colony) names a project of decolonization that seeks to de-compartmentalize knowledge and practices and respond to “an urgent need for social and cultural reparations” by engaging sites of living and thinking together: http://www.lacolonie.paris/agenda/salon-du-livre-dart-des-afriques_1.

5 Đổi Mới refers to the economic reforms in Việt Nam in the 1980s that marked the official shift from a centrally planned economy to a “socialist-oriented market economy.”

6 https://www.academia.edu/38031898/Indifferent_Idols.

7 “Danh Vo: Take My Breath Away,” Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, February 9–May 9, 2018, https://www.guggenheim.org/exhibition/danh-vo.

8 Kader Attia, “Repairing the Invisible,” S.M.A.K, Belgium, March 3–October 1, 2017, https://smak.be/en/exhibition/10980?fbclid=IwAR0TVprJ51fTXEZbWEHpDE6xp9QzVDjDNGhR1YK7c7W0HKX3JGETNc_4lRk.