Dear Giang
Please don't think my silence has been any kind of deliberate act on my part. I have been wanting to respond for some time now, but wanted to find the space to appropriately respond to your email, an email that I was very very grateful for your time and consideration. I hope that there will be plenty more of these kinds of critical debates online and in person.
Firstly, your comment on the Ho Chi Minh Trail project ideally fundamentally anchored to the shared act of physically taking to the road (either backwards or forwards) is a definite conceptual concern and of course, an integral part of the overall project. We have had much debate here on the motivations for this project for the Long March organization that it is today. As you already know, the 2002 re-tracing of China's historical Long March has shaped the understanding of our ongoing activities, it has provided a philosophical platform to which our ongoing interrogation of historical memory, consciousness, awareness of the fragile relationship between social custom and market driven production... and much more.... continues to be voiced and visualized. Since 2002, the Long March Project has grown to become a powerful institutional voice in contemporary China. It is now a gallery space, an author, a consultancy, a publishing house and commissioning atelier. Many consider our operations quite a conundrum because on the one hand we operate as commercial space, while on the other many consider us a not-for-profit entity. This confusion can often be to our benefit but artists, our solid core, are constantly questioning us of the
meaning of the Long March Project today. How have our working methods and needs changed and why? What is our forward focus in a climate heady with market concerns between producer and consumer? Where is the place of history, of social community in today's contemporary cultural climate? it is in this vein that the 'Ho Chi Minh Trail' project was initiated. We are
trying to fight for a different model of an artist-servicing entity, one that engages with critical and important concerns regarding why we do what we do, desiring a continued dialogue, a continued opportunity for debate that further stimulates critical thinking. It is in this realm of criticism that the Long March Project have sponsored publications (such as the journal
YISHU); sponsored online projects such as the '25000 Best Exhibition of the Year Award'.
I tell you these things to try to articulate our own reasons for doing this project and why beginning with the march for the Ho Chi Minh Trail project is possible but also somewhat conceptually problematic. We need to configure this 'march' that differentiates itself from the 2002 project 'A Walking Visual Display' which, yes, took 3 years of research. It needs to be an
undertaking that the local people want, see value in, will engage and be inspired, it needs to be a journey that addresses the needs of all participants. The 2002 march had a particular structure, one based upon the events of 1934-36. For the trail, yes as you say the Vietnam War has shaped world history, and I agree with you that it is about time that divergent perspectives concerning why and how this event came to be should be more laterally re-interpreted - but it would be more enlightening to try and make this journey about something that is not so tied to stereotype - to try and expand the meaning of roads, of pathways as linkages, as potential metaphorical spaces of shared time and memory. It is in this vein of the 'journey' that I think would be a necessary inclusion - in thinking of the journey's of the Vietnamese boat people, of the journeys of rural migrants
in city centres such as Saigon, to consider the POW psychological journey's in Con Dao etc..... The Long March Project seeks progress on a social and practical level, it is about testing our own understanding of ourselves and our drive to push boundaries, test limits. We cannot take the model of the 2002 march, making work along the way, holding exhibitions and debates along the road and transfer this to the Ho Chi Minh Trail. This 2002 model transpired because it was initiated by a Chinese person highly anxious of the role of his own past in determining a certain kind of future. The 2002 march was initiated by chinese people with deep regard for their own history. What kind of statement is the Long March Project making in
asserting a march of similar methodology, on such a heavily loaded pathway between Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. Is this another kind of colonial act?
Assuming what expands the conscience for one should necessarily be the process for another. All of these questions are still boiling around with us here and one we need much more debate. What kind of model or framework would drive the people in Vietnam to open up to discussion. I would be keen to hear your ideas. Do you not think that by trying to insert a lecture program in Vietnam before this possible 'march' will serve to only broaden the potential ideas for the project? It is also a very practical decision to state residency and lecture programs as essential to the main aims of the project - education lies at the core of Long March - and it is also something to which we can gain adequate funding for such an ambitious project.
I would like to include Dinh Q Le and Tran Luong to this email conversation. I would like much more open debate here and these two people are also essential to the overall realization of this project. Please let me know if you are OK for me to do this and I will send on (I'm looking into an online platform, like a blog, to have this discussion between us to make it easier). In the spirit of engaged discussion - I hope this email conversation continues in person when I am next in Vietnam. I'll be in Saigon 18-20 Sept. San Art have a fund raiser evening on the 18th and if you are able to attend it would be great to follow up with a hearty evening of talk the next night.
Let me know what you think.
Thanks Giang. sorry this is so long!
Best
Zoe
(the above excerpt was shared on email on 10 August, 2008)
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