Food city Ho Chi Minh City: designing relational mapping of the culture of place

ABSTRACT

This research investigates the novel design and implementation of a relational mapping of city spaces, based on research conducted in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The experimental mapping employs relational methods of exploration to document and understand the city. A special Memefest mapping workshop used food as a key medium for some of the relationships that underpin the culture, community, and the city itself. This paper outlines the design of a sensory based exploration and creative mapping of food culture in Ho Chi Minh City and puts special emphasis in the atmospheres that are created through the relations between food, community, and the structures that underlie these. Lastly the paper shows an example of installations and explains how they work as (post) representational maps of relations and atmospheres.

RÉSUMÉ

Cette étude porte sur la conception et réalisation d'une cartographie relationnelle des espaces urbains, à partir de recherches réalisées à Ho Chi Minh Ville au Vietnam. La cartographie expérimentale utilise des méthodes relationnelles d'exploration pour documenter et comprendre la ville. Un atelier spécial de cartographie Memefest a utilisé la nourriture comme vecteur clé pour certaines des relations qui soutiennent la culture, les communautés et la ville elle-même. Cet article décrit la conception d'une exploration sensorielle et d'une cartographie créative de la culture culinaire à Ho Chi Minh Ville et met l'accent sur les atmosphères crées par les relations entre la nourriture, les communautés et les structures qui les sous-tendent. Enfin, l'article montre un exemple d'installations et explique comment elles fonctionnent comme cartes (post-) représentatives des relations et des atmosphères.

KEYWORDS:

• Ho Chi Minh City
• relational mapping
• atmospheres of the city
• food as a medium
• culture of place

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The project was made by (Ben) Thuan Cong Tran, (Lazy) Long Hoang Nguyen, Aisha Hara, Angelica Trono, Nguyet, Thi Minh Nguyen and mentored by Dr Andy Stiff and Dr Oliver Vodeb

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Australian Government.

Notes on contributors

Andrew Stiff

Andrew Stiff is an academic at the School of Design RMIT University, HCMC, Vietnam, focusing on experimental and design courses. Andrew's creative practice is centered around at the medium of moving image and explores how the sensory experience of place can be reconstituted through experimental digital film.

Oliver Vodeb

Dr. Oliver Vodeb is an academic at the School of Design RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. He is principal curator of Memefest and Lipstick+ Bread. He's latest books are Radical Intimacies Designing Non-extractive relationalities (Intellect) and What is Post-Branding? How to Counter Fundamentalist Marketplace Semiotics (Set Margins').