HÀ NỘI – A seminar conducted by artist Nguyễn Ban Ga and researcher Trần Quang Đức will be held on Sunday.

This is part of a series being organised by Nhà Sàn Collective to raise awareness about contemporary Việt Nam and to promote dialogue and collaboration among different fields and communities.

Ga will present his Imagining Territories project, which he has been carrying out since early 2015.

He has travelled to many places, such as from the northern border areas in Quảng Ninh Province to Lý Sơn Island in the central Quảng Ngãi Province.

He has traced vestiges of artefacts and locations associated with Việt Nam’s proud national defence tradition.

The project is a journey of reflection during which the artist investigates various aspects of political frameworks that have shaped each and every Vietnamese.

Ga, a graduate at the Việt Nam Academy of Fine Arts, lives and works in Hà Nội. He is one of the founders of Hanoi Link, a collective of young video artists.

He also works at a centre of documentary, experimental film and video arts, where he teaches short courses on filmmaking. Although video art is his primary medium, Ga also works with painting and performance art to express his perspective on issues that the Vietnamese society is facing.

At the seminar, Han-Nom (ancient Vietnamese script) researcher Đức will share his study of the shifts in Vietnamese perception of Chinese culture.

Đức is an independent researcher. He won a scholarship for higher education at Beijing University, from where he graduated in 2009.

He is active in the field of education, and is currently researching topics of Vietnamese ancient and medieval culture and history. His debut book, entitled Ngàn Năm Áo Mũ (Thousand Years of Headgear and Clothing), won the Good Book Award 2014 in the new discoveries category.

The seminar will be held only in Vietnamese from 4pm to 6.30pm at Nhà Sàn Collective, 15th floor, Hanoi Creative City, 1 Lương Yên Street.

Participants can call 0985870316 for English support.

The seminar is part of the Knowledge Exchange series. Each seminar follows subject matters with discussions conducted by an artist and an expert in another discipline such as history, archaeology and sociology.

The Knowledge Exchange series is held from March to December at different venues in Hà Nội. -- VNS