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    Anywhere But Here

    PAST EVENTS

    Tuesday, September 13, 2016, 6-9pm

    Opening of the Anywhere But Here exhi­bi­tion

    With cura­tors (Mélanie Mermod and Vera Mey) and artists Vuth Lyno, Tran Minh Duc and Albert Samreth.

    Opening of the exhibition "Anywhere But Here", Bétonsalon - Center for Art and Research, Paris, 2016. Vuth Lyno, UNTAC Project, 2016. Courtesy of the artist.


    Opening of the exhibition "Anywhere But Here", Bétonsalon - Center for Art and Research, Paris, 2016. Courtesy of Koh Nguang How.


    Opening of the exhibition "Anywhere But Here", Bétonsalon - Center for Art and Research, Paris, 2016. Thao-Nguyen Phan, Heads from Uproot Rice, Grow Jute series, 2014. Courtesy of the artist.


    Opening of the exhibition "Anywhere But Here", Bétonsalon - Center for Art and Research, Paris, 2016. Hàm Nghi (Tu Xuân), Femme à la coloquinte, 1925. Private collection, Paris.


    Wednesday, September 14, 2016, 2:45pm

    The Awaking Ceremony of Catha

    For Anywhere But Here, artist Khvav Samnang (1982, Svay Rieng, Cambodia) is working on a new pro­ject evoking the use of the yantras by the Cambodian dias­pora set­tled in Paris over the time. For the dura­tion of the exhi­bi­tion, mem­bers of the com­mu­nity are lending dif­ferent kinds of objects orna­mented with geo­met­rical pat­terns. In the course of the Awaking Ceremony these adorn­ments will be “re­plen­ished” by a monk.
    These objects are encir­cled with a cotton belt (Catha) that looks just like the waist­bands worn by Cambodian sol­diers sent to France during Word War One. The cotton strap was meant to provide pro­tec­tion to whomever or what­ever it girded.

    The Awaking Ceremony of Catha, in the framework of Anywhere But Here, Bétonsalon - Center for Art and Research, Paris, 2016.


    The Awaking Ceremony of Catha, in the framework of Anywhere But Here, Bétonsalon - Center for Art and Research, Paris, 2016.


    Saturday, September 17, 2016, 3 p.m.

    Conversation: On move­ment

    The engagement of Emperor Hàm Nghi, 1904 , © Rights reserved

    From 1862 to 1954, France has engaged with a policy of "taking pos­ses­sion" (or "pro­tec­tion order") in South-East Asia, by inte­grating the entirety of Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, as well as a part of ori­ental China to its colo­nial empire. The first ses­sion of the pro­gram Anywhere But Here at Bétonsalon - Center for Art and Research aims at focusing on the move­ment of some indi­vid­uals that were closely related to the his­tory of the Indochinese Union. We will do so by high­lighting the way in which these inti­mate tra­jec­to­ries between South-East Asia and France allow to per­ceive the com­plexity of the poli­cies of devel­op­ment and preser­va­tion of the colo­nial regime, along with the emer­gence of clan­des­tine anti-colo­nial move­ments.

    Prince Canh, Nguyen Phuc Canh (1780-1801), is an emblem­atic figure of the rela­tions between South-East Asia and France. As young as five years old, the young prince was sent to Versailles with a del­e­ga­tion in order to con­vince King Louis XVI to sup­port his dynasty. This journey trans­formed South-East Asian polit­ical spec­trum and shaped the con­nex­ions between France and Vietnam.

    Speaker: Tran Minh Duc (1982, Hô-Chi-Minh-Ville, Vietnam) is a Vietnamese artist. His interest lies in the Past, its frag­men­tary modes of dif­fu­sion and the way it inter­acts with our pre­sent time. With his artistic prac­tice, he inves­ti­gates Vietnamese urban life char­ac­ter­is­tics. In order to do so, he studies the inter­ac­tion between indi­vidual and col­lec­tive spheres, between ideas such as the local/ internal and for­eign/external. Invited by Bétonsalon – Centre for Art and Research for a res­i­dency in Paris, and in the rela­tion to the exhi­bi­tion Anywhere but Here, Tran Minh Duc will focus on the over­looked details of young prince Canh’s visit to France.

    Emperor Hàm Nghi (咸宜, 1871, Huế - 1944, Alger), known as ‘The Anman Prince’ during his exile, resorted to his given name ‘Tu Xuân’ as his pseudonym. In 1885 he became the ruler of Vietnam at 13 years old only for a sole year. After being hold cap­tive three years later, he was sent into exile in Algeria, a deed France was respon­sible for. In Algiers, French admin­is­tra­tion allowed him to study in fine arts with a painting teacher. This newly acquired skill would become cen­tral to his life.

    Speaker : Amandine Dabat has a PhD in art his­tory, that she has obtained at the University Paris-Sorbonne (Paris IV). Her thesis dealt with the life and the work of the Vietnamese emperor Hàm Nghi (1871-1944). Amandine Dabat also grad­u­ated in Vietnamese studies at Paris-Diderot University (Paris VII). In the course of her PhD and in rela­tion with her studies, she trav­elled both in Vietman and Algeria, for two years. She has pub­lished dozen of arti­cles and par­tic­i­pated in var­ious inter­na­tional sym­po­siums and con­fer­ences. For two years she has been teaching at the University of Hanoi, Vietnam.

    Tran Duc Thao (1917, Hanoi- 1993, Paris) was one of the greatest con­tem­po­rary Marxist philoso­pher in Vietnam. Admitted to the École nor­male supérieure of the Rue d’Ulm, Paris, he passed his phi­los­ophy aggre­ga­tion.
    Student of Cavailles, he has been con­sid­ered as one of the best spe­cialist of phe­nomenology and of E. Husserl fol­lowing the pub­li­ca­tion of his book Phenomenology and dialectic mate­ri­alism in 1950. A leader of the Vietnamese dias­pora under the German occu­pa­tion in France, he returned to his country just after the out­break of the Indochina war, where he joined the anti­colo­nial move­ment that sup­ported the national inde­pen­dence. Marxist cri­tique and trans­lator of Hegel and K.Marx in Vietnamese, he was sub­jected to the repres­sion of the Communist party during the Hundred Flowers Campaign (1956-1957).

    Speaker : Trinh Van Thao (1938, Sud Viêt-Nam) com­pleted most of his higher learning in France (Sciences Po, Sorbonne). He teaches soci­ology and con­tem­po­rary his­tory in French Universities (Amiens, Lille, Aix Marseille, International Collège of Philosophy in Paris) and for­eign uni­ver­si­ties (in Brazil, Canada, Japan….).
    He is emer­itus pro­fessor at AMU.

    Along with the entry into war in 1939, the Indochinese admin­is­tra­tion was given the order to send more than 20 000 men from the occu­pied region to the metropolis. Instead of joining the French army, these men joined weapon fac­to­ries. Under the super­vi­sion of the depart­ment of the ‘Main d’Oeuvre Indigène’ (or Indigenous Work Force), depending itself on the Ministry of Labour, these newly arrived men were con­sid­ered as ‘non-spe­cialised work force’. After the defeat of June 1940, these workers would be hired by dif­ferent firms, for a meagre salary equiv­a­lent to one-tenth of the income of a French worker. In the region of Camargue, part of this labour force con­tributed to the imple­men­ta­tion and improve­ment of rice fields which are still exploited nowa­days.

    Speaker: Journalist, former reporter of Libération, and cur­rently reporter for Le Monde Diplomatique, Pierre Daum leads his­tor­ical inves­ti­ga­tions on the colo­nial past of France, both in Vietnam and in Algeria. In 2009 he pub­lished Immigrés de force (Forcefully Displaced, pub­lishing Actes Sud), unveiling the hidden his­tory of the ’20 000’ Indochinese workers of the Second World Ward to the public at large. His book has been brought to big screen with Man Lê’s 2013 Công Binh, La Longue nuit indochi­noise (The Long Indochinese Night), and to tele­vi­sion in 2015, with Alain Lewbowicz’s Riz Amer (Bitter Rice).

    Conversation: On move­ment, in the framework of Anywhere But Here, Bétonsalon - Center for Art and Research, Paris, 2016.


    Conversation: On move­ment, in the framework of Anywhere But Here, Bétonsalon - Center for Art and Research, Paris, 2016.


    Conversation: On move­ment, in the framework of Anywhere But Here, Bétonsalon - Center for Art and Research, Paris, 2016.

    Tasting of the Domaine Morère coffee made at Dalal (Vietnam), thanks to the gen­erous dona­tion of Pierre Morère.

    Tuesday, September 20, 2016 at 7:30 pm


    at the Auditorium of the Cité inter­na­tionale des arts
    Vera Mey’s talk: Shaking & moving in South-East Asia
    In the frame­work of Traverses.

    Sooshie Sulaiman, Chanta, 2005 - ongoing. Courtesy of the artist

    Independent curator Vera Mey will draw upon a few case studies from a paper she deliv­ered at the APT8 Conference in Brisbane about artists in Southeast Asia and their rela­tion­ship to social change and artistic pro­duc­tion. This has formed part of wider research she is con­ducting as co curator on SEA Project (working title), due to open in July 2017 at the Mori Art Museum and National Art Centre Tokyo in Japan.

    Despite intense social change and upheaval within Southeast Asia over the recent decades, often which has resulted in a wider cul­tural amnesia, artists con­tinue to show con­ti­nuity between the aes­thetic his­to­ries of the past and the pre­sent. Not only are artist using aes­thetic devices in a con­tin­uous manner but also using his­tory itself as a mate­rial to be con­stantly revised, re per­formed and re enacted in order to exca­vate dor­mant his­to­ries and to show con­ti­nuity as a counter to for­get­ting. The prac­tices of Amanda Heng, Khvay Samnang, Shooshie Sulaiman and Vuth Lyno all con­tain ele­ments of per­for­mance in rela­tion to his­to­ries which are under rep­re­sented within dom­i­nant meta nar­ra­tives around key moments in nation building and can be even be read as alter­na­tive his­to­ries.

    The ideas of moving and shaking will be looked taking cue from the Mahabharata’s Book of the Beginning (8th– 9th Century BC) and ideas around cir­cular time, change and over­lap­ping his­to­ries through their prac­tices although the respec­tive his­to­ries are not nec­es­sarily in direct con­ver­sa­tion. These ulti­mately map a his­tory of over­lap­ping interest and inter­ac­tion through mutual his­tor­ical events that impact on a social and regional scale. Even the notion of Southeast Asia as a region, more con­fi­den­tally defining itself as a socio polit­ical spa­tial and tem­poral zone has had incred­ible change over the last fifty years.

    Artists in Southeast Asia are often framed within con­di­tions of new­ness and regen­er­a­tion despite notions of his­tory and con­ti­nuity being ever pre­sent within the aes­thetic his­to­ries of dif­ferent parts of the region. Perhaps change is the only con­stant.

    Vera Mey (Born in 1987 in Wellington, New Zealand) is an inde­pen­dent curator based in London. She was part of the founding team of the NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore led by Ute Meta Bauer from 2013. For 2015-2016 she is guest curator at Sa Sa Bassac and Bétobsalon –Center for Art adn Research, grantee of SOAS, University of London and Getty Foundation as part of Ambitious Alignments: New Histories of Southeast Asian Art.

    More infor­ma­tion here

    Wednesday September 21, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.


    Seminar: The Apsara Transdisciplinary Research Club, ses­sion 1
    A event in the frame­work of the Académie vivante
    With Vera Mey, co-curator of the exhi­bi­tion Anywhere But Here.

    Shu Tit Sing, photograph taken during his 1963 trip to Angkor, bas-reliefs with Apsaras. All rights reserved.

    The first edi­tion of the Apsara Transdisciplinary Research Club will look at the cir­cu­la­tion of the figure of the Apsara and how she is cir­cu­lated in wider parts of Southeast Asia and through Cambodia dias­pora. The dis­cus­sion will start with the Ten Men Group oper­a­tive between the 1960s - 1970s and how she appeared within cer­tain artists works from the group. The dis­cus­sion will then pro­gress to the pres­ence of the Apsara in film clips and tourist adver­tising and look at the ways she is in cir­cu­la­tion today.

    Vera Mey (born in 1987 in Wellington, New Zealand) is an inde­pen­dent curator based in London. She was part of the founding team of the NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore led by Ute Meta Bauer from 2013. For 2015-2016 she is guest curator at Sa Sa Bassac and Bétobsalon –Center for Art adn Research, grantee of SOAS, University of London and Getty Foundation as part of Ambitious Alignments: New Histories of Southeast Asian Art.

    More infor­ma­tion here

    Wednesday September 28, from 6 p.m. to 8p.m.


    Seminar: The Apsara Transdisciplinary Research Club, ses­sion 2
    A event in the frame­work of the Académie vivante
    With Suppya Nut, Lecturer on the South-East Asia History at the Paris-Diderot University. She will address the his­tory and for­ma­tion of the Apsara dance.

    Shu Tit Sing, photograph taken during his 1963 trip to Angkor, bas-reliefs with Apsaras. All rights reserved.

    Suppya Hélène Nut is a spe­cialist of the Royal Ballet of Cambodia. She works in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Princess Norodom Buppha Devi, master of dance and chore­og­raphy of the Royal Ballet. Suppya Nut directed the “Khmer Dance Project” on the behalf of the New-York Public Library, for which she has real­ized 61 videos regarding dance in Cambodia (inter­views of artists, cap­tures of dances rep­re­sen­ta­tion). She teaches Cambodian lit­er­a­ture and the per­forming arts of South-East Asia at the National Institute for Oriental Languages and Civilisations in Paris, while pur­suing her research on the Royal Ballet and gender in Cambodia.

    More infor­ma­tion here

    Wednesday 5 October, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.


    Seminar: The Apsara Transdisciplinary Research Club, ses­sion 3
    An event in the frame­work of the Académie vivante
    With Jean-Pierre Couty, asso­ciate pro­fessor at Paris-Diderot University, Cochin Institute.

    Cancerous cells, all rights reserved.

    Jean-Pierre Couty is immu­nol­o­gist, spe­cialised in the study of the liver cancer. He is inter­ested in deci­phering the dia­logue which lays at the basis of the rela­tion between cancerous cells and those of the immune system. As a source of inspi­ra­tion, part of his work is organ­ised in way which he assumes draws sim­i­lar­i­ties with street the­atre, which hence could be com­pared to the mys­te­ri­ous­ness of the Apsara dance. Jean-Pierre Couty simply pro­poses that the move­ment and defor­ma­tion of cells (be they immune, vas­cular or cancerous) be fur­ther explored through the devel­op­ment of cancer and its evo­lu­tion through time.

    More infor­ma­tion here

    Thursday, October 6, 2016 from 6 to 9 pm


    Tran Minh Duc’s open-studio at the Cité inter­­na­­tio­­nale des arts (studio 8109, 1st floor) in the frame­work of Traverses.

    1st day of Tran Minh Duc’s workshop, 3D DIY modelling and artistic creation. All rights reserved.

    During his open studio, Tran Minh Duc will pre­sent the on-going research that he con­ducts in France notably in the archive of the Paris Foreign Missions Society. The artist addresses the his­tory of the rela­tion­ship between Vietnam and France, within the des­tiny of the Prince Canh who at the age of seven, in 1785, was sent by his father the Emperor Gia Long (the founder of the Nguyen dynasty, the last dynasty of Vietnam) with the French Catholic Father Pigneau de Béhaine to Paris to ask for an alliance with King Louis XVI. This treaty marked the begin­ning of col­o­niza­tion of Vietnam by France. The little prince spent five years in Paris, where he took an interest in Catholicism and started to wear French clothes. When he returned to Vietnam, he couldn’t com­pletely fit in the life and cul­ture of his own country. The prince’s des­tiny sym­bol­izes the split between time and space, between polit­ical power and bor­ders, reli­gious belief and freedom of belief. He inherited his Vietnamese Prince title from one the most renowned dynasty of Vietnam but ended up his life, melan­cholic, dwelling on his mem­o­ries of the West.
    For Anywhere But Here in Bétonsalon – Center for Art and Research, Tranh Minh Duc pre­sented an artwok also linked with the Prince Canh his­tory.

    Tran Minh Duc (1982, Hô-Chi-Minh-Ville, Vietnam) is a Vietnamese artist. His interest lies in the Past, its frag­men­tary modes of dif­fu­sion and the way it inter­acts with our pre­sent time. With his artistic prac­tice, he inves­ti­gates Vietnamese urban life char­ac­ter­is­tics. In order to do so, he studies the inter­ac­tion between indi­vidual and col­lec­tive spheres, between ideas such as the local/ internal and for­eign/external.
    He was invited in Japan, Myanmar and Cambodia for res­i­den­cies and par­tic­i­pated to the fol­lowing exhi­bi­tions (selec­tion) : Global Cities, Center Stage, Baltimore, United-States, 2014 ; 15th Anniversary : Nha San Duc, Hanoi, Vietnam, 2014 ; Beyond Pressure : Festival of Performance Art, Yangon, Myanmar, 2012 ; Poetic Politic, Kadist Art Foundation, San Francisco, United-States, 2012 ; Tokyo Story, TWS Shibuya Gallery, Tokyo, Japon, 2012 ; Open Edit : AAA Mobile Library, San Art, Hô-Chi-Minh City, Vietnam, 2011.

    More infor­ma­tion here

    Wednesday October 12, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m


    Seminar: The Apsara Transdisciplinary Research Club, ses­sion 4
    A event in the frame­work of the Académie vivante
    With Hélène Marquié, Lecturer at the centre for Feminine studies, Paris VIII, will talk about the inter­sec­tion between gender and dance.

    Anonymous, Louis XIV dressed as Apollo in the Ballet of the Night, 1653, detail. All rights reserved.

    During this talk, Hélène Marquié will pre­sent a part of her research local­ized at the inter­sec­­tion between dance studies and gender studies. At first she will address the way in which the per­spec­­tive of the gender enlighten the anthro­pology of dance, what it allows us to under­­s­tand about the his­­tory of the ballet in France, while estab­lishing par­al­lels or diver­­gences with the khmer ballet. Finally she will focus on the dif­ferent ques­­tions raised by the rep­re­sen­­ta­­tions of gender and of its stere­o­­types.

    Hélène Marquié is lec­turer in gender studies at the Paris 8 University. She is a member of the LEGS (Laboratoire d’études de genre et de sex­u­alité / Laboratory for the studies of gender and sex­u­ality). She is also an asso­ciate pro­fessor in biology and geology. Dancer and chore­og­ra­pher of con­tem­po­rary dance, her research is local­ized at the crossing between dance studies and gender studies: she addresses the his­tory con­struc­tion and rep­re­sen­ta­tion of gender within the his­tory of dance. She has recently pub­lished a book enti­tled Non, la danse n’est pas un truc de fille – Essai sur le genre en danse (or No, dance is not some girls’ stuff – Essay on gender within the field of dance, Toulouse, Éditions de l’Attribut, 2016 ).She is a member the Policy, of the Scientific and of the Management Boards of the Emilie du Châtelet Institute. For many years she has been par­tic­i­pating in the research work­shop enti­tled “Dance as an anthro­po­log­ical object”, orga­nized by CNRS/Paris 1/EPHE/Université Blaise Pascal-Clermont-Ferrand 2 / Université de Nanterre Paris Ouest.

    More infor­ma­tion here.

    Saturday October 15, 5 p.m.


    Tran Minh Duc’s per­for­mance When I was 6 or 7 years old in Paris with the par­tic­i­pants of the work­shop 3D DIY mod­elling and artistic cre­ation.
    A event in the frame­work of the Académie vivante

    Workshop « 3D DIY modelling and artistic creation », in parallel to Anywhere But Here, Bétonsalon - Center for Art and Research, Paris, 2016.

    During this event, Tran Minh Duc and the par­tic­i­­pants of the work­shop 3D DIY mod­­elling and artistic cre­a­tion will per­­form the pro­­duc­­tions they made which are linked to the artist’s researches on the Prince Nguyễn Phúc Cảnh’s trip to France. Prince Canh was sent to Versailles with a del­e­­ga­­tion at only five years old in order to con­vince Louis XVI to sup­­port his father’s dynasty. This trip upended the polit­ical spec­trum of the region and the rela­­tions between France and Vietnam. Tran Minh Duc is par­tic­u­larly inter­ested in the cos­­tume worn by the prince in a por­­trait made during his stay in Versailles. Within this work­shop, designed as an intro­­duc­­tion to his large-scale pro­­ject, he worked with the par­tic­i­­pants more specif­i­­cally on the prince’s head­­­dress.

    Tran Minh Duc (1982, Hô-Chi-Minh-Ville, Vietnam) is a Vietnamese artist. His interest lies in the Past, its frag­­men­­tary modes of dif­­fu­­sion and the way it inter­acts with our pre­sent time. With his artistic prac­tice, he inves­ti­­gates Vietnamese urban life char­ac­ter­is­tics. In order to do so, he studies the inter­ac­­tion between indi­vidual and col­lec­­tive spheres, between ideas such as the local/ internal and for­eign/external.
    He was invited in Japan, Myanmar and Cambodia for res­i­­den­­cies and par­tic­i­­pated to the fol­lowing exhi­bi­­tions (selec­­tion) : Global Cities, Center Stage, Baltimore, United-States, 2014 ; 15th Anniversary : Nha San Duc, Hanoi, Vietnam, 2014 ; Beyond Pressure : Festival of Performance Art, Yangon, Myanmar, 2012 ; Poetic Politic, Kadist Art Foundation, San Francisco, United-States, 2012 ; Tokyo Story, TWS Shibuya Gallery, Tokyo, Japon, 2012 ; Open Edit : AAA Mobile Library, San Art, Hô-Chi-Minh City, Vietnam, 2011.

    More infor­ma­tion here.

    Wednesday October 19, from 6 p.m. to 8p.m.


    Seminar: The Apsara Transdisciplinary Research Club, ses­sion 5 with the Ballet Classique Khmer (BCK) of Paris.
    A event in the frame­work of the Académie vivante

    Postcard from Cambodia, representing Apsara dancers. All rights reserved.

    For this fifth ses­sion of the sem­inar The Apsara Transdisciplinary Research Club, dancers from Le Ballet Classique Khmer (BCK) asso­ci­a­tion will ini­tiate the par­tic­i­pants to the com­plexity and diver­sity of the Apsara dance ges­tures.

    The asso­ci­a­tion Le Ballet Classique Khmer (BCK), or ‘Classical Khmer Ballet’ of Paris aims at pre­serving, trans­mit­ting, and making the mil­len­nial art of clas­sical Cambodian dance known.
    Funded in 1976 by SAR, the Princess Vacheahra Norodom and by dancers from the Royal Ballet from Phnom Penh, the asso­ci­a­tion, thanks to the many per­for­mances made across France and the world, par­tic­i­pated in the recog­ni­tion of this art, which has been reg­is­tered as part of the global imma­te­rial her­itage by the UNESCO. The teaching of the dance is pro­vided by mas­ters of renown, on a weekly basis.
    The ballet is com­posed of Cambodian, French with Cambodian ori­gins or French men and women of all ages. Several chil­dren of the first gen­er­a­tion of Cambodian refugees who sought shelter in France found, through this asso­ci­a­tion, a way to con­nect with their cul­tural roots.

    More infor­ma­tion here.

    Saturday October 22, at 3 p.m.


    Conversation: Theatre of Movements in South-East Asia
    With Vera Mey, Robert Vifian, Vuth Lyno.

    Masks from face casting workshop by SA SA ART PROJECTS’ artist-in-residence Tes Vannorng, with students at the White Building, 2016. All rights reserved.

    This round table pro­poses, by using dif­ferent scales (per­sonal, national or transna­tional), to pre­sent three enti­ties solely through the obser­va­tion of their move­ments and inter­ac­tions. The artist Vuth Lyno will pre­sent the pro­ject “The­atre of move­ments” which took place in the artists-run space Sa Sa Art Projects located in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, in August 2016, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Bétonsalon – Center for Art and Research. Then, Vera Mey will extend the dis­cus­sion and pro­pose a car­tog­raphy of dif­ferent spaces of inter­ac­tions and exchanges between artists in South-East Asia. Lastly, Robert Vifian will evoke the con­sti­tu­tion of his col­lec­tion and the links it nur­tures with his own life and his per­sonal and inti­mate move­ments.

    Vera Mey (Born in 1987 in Wellington, New Zealand) is an inde­pen­dent curator based in London. She was part of the founding team of the NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore led by Ute Meta Bauer from 2013. For 2015-2016 she is guest curator at Sa Sa Bassac and Bétobsalon –Center for Art adn Research, grantee of SOAS, University of London and Getty Foundation as part of Ambitious Alignments: New Histories of Southeast Asian Art.

    Vuth Lyno (b. 1982, Phnom Penh) is an artist, curator and artistic director of Sa Sa Art Projects, Phnom Penh’s only artist-run space, located in the his­­­toric and presently endan­gered neigh­bor­­­hood known as the White Building. Vuth’s prac­tice is pri­­­marily par­tic­i­­­pa­­­tory and col­lab­o­ra­­­tive in nature, engaging specific Cambodian com­­­mu­ni­ties and the cul­­­tures unique to them. Vuth holds a Master of Art History from the State University of New York, Binghamton, sup­­­ported by Fulbright fel­low­­­ship.
    Vuth is an artist-in-res­i­­­dence at the Cité inter­na­tionale des arts through the “Tra­verses” pro­gram cre­ated with Bétonsalon - Center for Art and Research, Paris (2016) and was a par­tic­i­­­pant of International Art Residency, Para Site, Hong Kong (2015).

    Robert Vifian, born at Saigon (Vietnam) in 1948, is prin­ci­pally, and pro­fes­sion­ally, a chef and a som­me­lier. He started to col­lect con­tem­po­rary art pieces in 1979. His col­lec­tion has the speci­ficity to be con­sti­tuted solely of art­works made by young artists who have just begun their career. Robert Vifian has been curator of the ret­ro­spec­tive exhi­bi­tion of David Altmejd which took place at the ARC Flux from the Museum of Modern Art of the City of Paris (October 2004 – February 2005). The exhi­bi­tion « Anywhere But Here » cur­rently dis­plays his por­trait, con­ceived by Felix González-Torres in 1993.

    Domaine Morère’s coffee tasting thanks to Pierre Morère’s gen­erous dona­tion. The Domaine Morère coffee is pro­duced in Dalat (Vietnam).

    Conversation: Theatre of Movements in South-East Asia , with Vera Mey, Robert Vifian, Vuth Lyno, in the framework of Anywhere But Here, Bétonsalon - Center for Art and Research, Paris, 2016.


    Conversation: Theatre of Movements in South-East Asia , with Vera Mey, Robert Vifian, Vuth Lyno, in the framework of Anywhere But Here, Bétonsalon - Center for Art and Research, Paris, 2016.

    Tuesday October 25, 2016 from 6pm to 9pm - room number 8509, 5th floor


    Vuth Lyno’s open-studio at the Cité inter­na­tionale des arts (Marais) in the frame­work of Traverses.

    Image of documentation of ’Keeping Peace’, a project led by Vuth Lyno. Courtesy of the artist, all rights reserved.

    For his open-studio, Vuth Lyno will pre­sent his ongoing pro­ject, Keeping Peace, which explores the imple­men­ta­tion and con­se­quences of the United Nations’ oper­a­tions for main­taining peace in Cambodia. By com­bining per­sonal and national tales that con­tributed to the writing of this moment of his­tory, the artist aims at shed­ding light on the ten­sions and con­tra­dic­tions which are inherent to these years driven simul­ta­ne­ously by vio­lence and by a deep aspi­ra­tion to peace.

    Vuth Lyno (b. 1982, Phnom Penh) is an artist, curator and artistic director of Sa Sa Art Projects, Phnom Penh’s only artist-run space, located in the his­­­toric and presently endan­gered neigh­bor­­­hood known as the White Building. Vuth’s prac­tice is pri­­­marily par­tic­i­­­pa­­­tory and col­lab­o­ra­­­tive in nature, engaging specific Cambodian com­­­mu­ni­ties and the cul­­­tures unique to them. Vuth holds a Master of Art History from the State University of New York, Binghamton, sup­­­ported by Fulbright fel­low­­­ship.
    Vuth is an artist-in-res­i­­­dence at the Cité inter­na­tionale des arts through the “Tra­verses” pro­gram cre­ated with Bétonsalon - Center for Art and Research, Paris (2016) and was a par­tic­i­­­pant of International Art Residency, Para Site, Hong Kong (2015).

    More infor­ma­tion here.

    Wednesday October 26, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.


    Seminar: The Apsara Transdisciplinary Research Club, ses­sion 6
    A event in the frame­work of the Académie vivante
    With Michael Falser, his­to­rian of archi­tec­ture at the Heidelberg University : "Reenacting the Royal Khmer Ballet : 1890-2015"

    Edge of the pit of the temples of Angkor Vat in the region of Siem Reap, © Les Archives de la Planète, autochrome 1918-1921.

    It is a com­mon­place that cul­tural her­itage is not only a highly con­tested con­cept of
    modern times, full of nation­al­istic under­tones, cul­tural stereo­types and essen­tialist
    topoi such as past grandeur and enduring cul­tural purity. Cultural her­itage has also
    become the easiest and most prof­itable prey for today’s global tourism industry. These
    obser­va­tions apply with par­tic­u­larly dra­matic con­se­quences to young emerging,
    post­colo­nial nation states with a rich reper­toire of built (tan­gible) and per­formed
    (intan­gible) cul­ture – espe­cially if ele­ments of this reper­toire are branded ‘UNESCO
    World Heritage’ without con­sid­ering their con­tested for­ma­tion his­to­ries. Few other iconic
    her­itage sites are more instruc­tive in show­casing these obser­va­tions than the temple
    site of Angkor, by charting the tran­scul­tural tra­jec­to­ries of Cambodia’s her­itage
    con­struc­tion through the pro­cesses of French colo­nial rein­ven­tion, post­colo­nial/nation­alist
    essen­tial­i­sa­tion, and global com­mod­i­fi­ca­tion. This pre­sen­ta­tion focuses on the ‘Royal
    Khmer Ballet’ as cul­tural per­for­mance and her­itage re-enact­ment in com­bi­na­tion with
    the twelfth-cen­tury temple of Angkor Wat as archi­tec­tural stage.

    Michael Falser is an Austrian archi­tect and art his­to­rian. Currently he his pro­ject leader at the Chair of Global Art History within the Cluster of Excellence "Asia and Europe in a Global Context. The Dynamics of Transculturality" at Heidelberg University. With his long-standing research in the tran­scul­tural her­itage for­ma­tion of Angkor between the French-colo­nial period, inde­pen­dent Cambodia and today’s UNESCO World Heritage regime, he pub­lished on the art and archi­tec­tural his­tory and cul­tural her­itage for­ma­tions in a global con­text. His mono­graph Angkor Wat. From Jungle Find to Global Icon. A Transcultural History of Heritage will be pub­lished with DeGruyter in 2017.

    More infor­ma­tion here.

    Saturday October 29, at 3 p.m.


    Conversation: pat­ri­mo­nial move­ments between arche­o­log­ical dis­courses and ritu­al­i­sa­tion.
    With Michael Falser, his­to­rian of archi­tec­ture at the Heidelberg University, and Maurizio Peleggi, his­tory teacher at the National University of Singapore.

    The atelier de Moulage in the Musée Sarraut (today National Museum) in Phnom Penh, Cambodia in the 1920s. Source: National Museum of Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

    This roundtable pro­poses to put into per­spec­tive the researches con­ducted by Michael Falser (archi­tec­ture his­to­rian at the University of Heidelberg) and by Maurizio Peleggi (pro­fessor of his­tory at the National University of Singapore) which both ques­tion some of the pat­ri­mo­ni­al­i­sa­tion pro­cesses in the light of the con­tem­po­rary issues of resti­tu­tion and reap­pro­pri­a­tion that con­cerned many of the museal insti­tu­tions across the world.

    The anal­ysis of hidden power con­stel­la­tions in any trans­la­tion pro­cess between cul­tures–in this spe­cial case between Asia and Europe–is an emerging fea­ture in (trans-)cul­tural studies. However, with a strong focus on texts and images, tech­niques of direct mate­rial trans­la­tion–such as plaster casts–are rarely dis­cussed. And even if the cul­tural-his­tor­ical value of this form of phys­ical copying in European museum col­lec­tions was redis­cov­ered in the last decade, the anal­ysis of their rel­e­vance in colo­nial trans­la­tion pol­i­tics has yet to be assessed.
    This pre­sen­ta­tion focuses on the cul­tural-polit­ical his­tory of French plaster casts. It is par­tic­u­larly inter­ested in those made of the Cambodian temple of Angkor Wat during early French explo­rative mis­sions, museum dis­plays, and uni­versal/colo­nial exhi­bi­tions (from the 1860s to 1930s). It explores the hypoth­esis that plaster casts were a pow­erful ‘trans­la­tion tool’ to appro­priate local, built her­itage in the Indochinese colonies for global rep­re­sen­ta­tion.

    Michael Falser is an Austrian archi­tect and art his­to­rian. Currently he his pro­ject leader at the Chair of Global Art History within the Cluster of Excellence "Asia and Europe in a Global Context. The Dynamics of Transculturality" at Heidelberg University. With his long-standing research in the tran­scul­tural her­itage for­ma­tion of Angkor between the French-colo­nial period, inde­pen­dent Cambodia and today’s UNESCO World Heritage regime, he pub­lished on the art and archi­tec­tural his­tory and cul­tural her­itage for­ma­tions in a global con­text. His mono­graph Angkor Wat. From Jungle Find to Global Icon. A Transcultural History of Heritage will be pub­lished with DeGruyter in 2017.

    The jour­neys of the itin­erant Buddha images
    The Buddha images that were ven­er­ated as pal­ladia in the Tai regional king­doms estab­lished in pre­sent-day Laos and northern Thailand were highly mobile. Their pere­gri­na­tions, both imag­i­nary and fac­tual, retraced the Buddha’s own legendary wan­der­ings in the middle and upper Mekong region. Itinerant images were also believed to avail them­selves, like film stars, of body dou­bles that under­took on their behalf the tra­vails of travel. Their per­ilous jour­neys—in­volving seizures, kid­nap­pings, and narrow escapes from ship­wrecks, wars, and nat­ural dis­as­ter­s—­fur­nished also per­fect nar­ra­tive mate­rial for a lit­erary genre that flour­ished in the king­doms of Lanchang and Chiangmai in the XV and XVI th cen­turies. This talk retraces the jour­neys of these itin­erant images and dis­cusses their enduring place in reli­gious devo­tion and cul­tural memory.

    Maurizio Peleggi teaches in the depart­ment of his­tory of the National University of Singapore since 1998. He is the author of sev­eral arti­cles and books on the art and cul­tural his­tory of Thailand, including The Politics of Ruins (2002), Lords of Things (2002), Thailand the Worldly Kingdom (2007), and, as editor, A Sarong for Clio (2015). His new book, Monastery, Monument, Museum: Sites and Artifacts of Cultural Memory in Thailand, is to be pub­lished in 2017.

    Wednesday November 2, at 6 p.m. at the amphitheater Buffon (Paris Diderot University)


    Le Sommeil d’Or (The Golden Sleep), a doc­u­men­tary by Davy Chou

    Davy Chou, Le Sommeil d’Or or The Golden Sleep, 2012. All rights reserved.

    Born in 1960, the ascen­sion of Cambodian cinema has been stopped when the Khmers Rouges came into power in 1975. Most of films were destroyed, actors were killed, and the cin­emas were closed, to later be trans­formed into restau­rants or karaoke clubs. Le Sommeil d’Or (or The Golden Sleep) gives the floor back to some of the wit­nesses who have sur­vived these trou­bled times, so as to revive spirit of this golden age of Cambodian films.

    The pro­jec­tions of the CinéDiderot pro­gram­ma­tion are free of charge and open to everyone on reser­va­tion.

    Saturday November 5, from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.


    Seminar: The Apsara Transdisciplinary Research Club, ses­sion 7
    A event in the frame­work of the Académie vivante

    "Love Duet", all rights reserved.

    For this con­cluding ses­sion of the sem­inar “The Apsara Transdisciplinary research Club”, we will receive Julie Burbage, clin­ical psy­chol­o­gist, who will address the theme of the dance, or rather of body in motions as a sup­port for ther­a­peu­tical prac­tices. Dancers from the Ballet Classique Khmer (BCK asso­ci­a­tion will join her so as to ini­tiate the par­tic­i­pants to the com­plex and diverse ges­tures of the Apsara dance.

    From one body to another. Danced move­ment, or an occa­sion of trans­for­ma­tion.
    In this pre­sen­ta­tion, we will work with the obser­va­tions resulting from a work­shop imple­mented in a ser­vice for adult psy­chi­atry, and par­tic­u­larly addressing psy­chotic patients. Then we will ini­tiate a reflec­tion on the ways danced move­ments can either provide an oppor­tu­nity to create a new rela­tion to the body for cer­tain patients, or, for others, it can allow them to draw their own cor­poral out­lines when those are hardly draft through exper­i­menting with sen­sa­tions. The psy­cho­an­a­lyt­ical approach to the body will allow us to enlighten some of the sen­so­rial et psy­chic issues which are at core of these trans­for­ma­tions.

    Julie Burbarge is a clin­ical psy­chol­o­gist at the Nursing Home of Epinay and at the accom­mo­da­tion and social reha­bil­i­ta­tion center of the Poterne des Peupliers.
    Holder of a jazz dance chore­og­raphy cer­tifi­cate, she fre­quently offers ther­a­peu­tical work­shops based on danced move­ments.
    Currently pur­suing a PhD at the Paris VII University, her research focuses on the impli­ca­tion of soma­tism upon delirium within the frame of psy­chosis.

    The asso­­ci­a­­tion Le Ballet Classique Khmer (BCK), or ‘Classical Khmer Ballet’ of Paris aims at pre­serving, tran­s­mit­ting, and making the mil­len­­nial art of clas­sical Cambodian dance known.
    Funded in 1976 by SAR, the Princess Vacheahra Norodom and by dancers from the Royal Ballet from Phnom Penh, the asso­­ci­a­­tion, thanks to the many per­­for­­mances made across France and the world, par­tic­i­­pated in the recog­ni­­tion of this art, which has been reg­is­tered as part of the global imma­te­rial her­itage by the UNESCO. The teaching of the dance is pro­­vided by mas­ters of renown, on a weekly basis.
    The ballet is com­­posed of Cambodian, French with Cambodian ori­­gins or French men and women of all ages. Several chil­­dren of the first gen­er­a­­tion of Cambodian refugees who sought shelter in France found, through this asso­­ci­a­­tion, a way to con­nect with their cul­­tural roots.

    More infor­ma­tion here.