Trinh T. Minh-ha: Films

“The making of each film transforms the way I see myself and the world. Once I start engaging in the process of making a film or in any artistic excursion, I am also embarking upon a journey whose point of arrival is unknown to me.” —Trinh T. Minh-ha

Trinh T. Minh-ha. Films. is the first institutional exhibition of filmmaker, music composer, anthropologist, feminist and postcolonial theorist Trinh T. Minh-ha in Asia, presented in an exhibition format. Five of her films—Forgetting Vietnam (2015), Night Passage (2004), The Fourth Dimension (2001), A Tale of Love (1995) and Shoot for the Contents (1991), filmed over a quarter of a century, in different parts of Asia, are simultaneously on view in five small-scale movie theatres. As the viewer wanders from one theatre to the next, the proximity of the films enables their narratives to interrelate. This spatial configuration took its cue from Trinh’s exhibition at the Secession, Vienna (2001).

Trinh’s newest cinematic work, What about China? (Part I of II, 2020–21), initiated by NTU CCA Singapore, and co-commissioned with Rockbund Art Museum (RAM), Shanghai, takes the notion of “harmony” in China as a site of creative manifestation. It draws from footage shot in 1993 and 1994 in provinces linked to the origins of Chinese civilization. Forgetting Vietnam, made in commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War, touches on the memory of trauma. Night Passage, inspired by Miyazawa Kenji’s novel Milky Way Railroad (1927), narrates the spiritual journey of a young immigrant and her companions. Filmed in Japan, The Fourth Dimension is Trinh’s first digital film, in which she composites images and sound in multiple layers in an exploration of time. A Tale of Love is a retelling of the 19th century Vietnamese poem The Tale of Kiều (1820), through a modern-day Vietnamese immigrant in the US. Shoot for the Contents explores cultural and political shifts in China, as refracted by the June Fourth incident in Beijing.

Trinh’s early films, Surname Viet Given Name Nam (1989), Naked Spaces—Living is Round (1985), and Reassemblage (1982), are screened as part of an online film programme, Speaking / Thinking Nearby.

This is NTU CCA Singapore’s final presentation in its current exhibition space, its opening coinciding with the Centre’s seventh anniversary. The Centre has hosted over 44 major exhibitions since its inception in 2013, inaugurated by the show Paradise Lost (2014), featuring works by Trinh T. Minh-ha alongside those of Zarina Bhimji and Fiona Tan.

Trinh T. Minh-ha (Vietnam/US) is Professor of Gender & Women’s Studies and of Rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley, and an award-winning artist and filmmaker. She grew up in South Vietnam during the Vietnam War and pursued her education at the National Conservatory of Music and Theater, Ho Chi Minh City. In 1970, she migrated to the US where she continued her studies in music composition, ethnomusicology, and French literature at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She embarked on a career as an educator which brought her to the National Conservatory of Music in Dakar, Senegal, where she shot her first film, Reassemblage. Trinh’s cinematic oeuvre has been featured in numerous exhibitions and film festivals. She participated in biennales across the globe including Documenta11, Kassel (2002) and most recently at Manifesta 13, Marseille (2020). A prolific writer, she has authored nine books.

Trinh T. Minh-ha. Films. is curated by Ute Meta Bauer, Founding Director, NTU CCA Singapore, and Professor, NTU School of Art, Design and Media (ADM); the film programme Speaking / Thinking Nearby is co-curated by NTU ADM Assistant Professors Marc Glöde, and Ella Raidel; the research presentation Why are they so afraid of a lotus? is conceived by Kim Nguyen, CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts (Wattis), San Francisco. Public programmes include Mother Always Has a Mother, a convening presented in collaboration with the Wattis and RAM. A closing conference, Thinking Nearby, organised in collaboration with NTU and King’s College London (KCL), features keynote speaker Dr Erika Balsom (KCL).

This project focuses on the multi-layered practice of Trinh T. Minh-ha as a filmmaker, writer, music composer and educator, generating a multi-year (2019–2022) research and programme partnership between NTU CCA Singapore, RAM, Wattis, and the Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart.

About NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore 
A leading international art institution, NTU CCA Singapore is a platform, host, and partner creating and driven by dynamic thinking in its three-fold constellation: Exhibitions; Residencies Programme; Research and Academic Education. A national research centre for contemporary art of Nanyang Technological University (NTU), the Centre focuses on Spaces of the Curatorial. It brings forth innovative and experimental forms of emergent artistic and curatorial practices that intersect the present and histories of contemporary art embedded in social-political spheres with other fields of knowledge.

About Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
​​​​​​A research-intensive public university, NTU has 33,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students in the colleges of Engineering, Business, Science, and Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, and its Graduate College. NTU’s campus is frequently listed among the top 15 most beautiful university campuses in the world and has 57 Green Mark-certified (equivalent to LEED-certified) buildings. ​Besides its 200-ha lush green, residential campus in western Singapore, NTU has a second campus in the heart of Novena, Singapore’s medical district.