Mother-Migration

Into The Violet Belly
Thuy-Han Nguyen-Chi, Belgium, Germany, 2022, 20 min., digital, Vietnamese, English, German languages, English subtitles

May You Live in Interesting Times
Fiona Tan, Australia, Indonesia 1999, 60 min., digital, English, Indonesian languages, English subtitles

The screening will be followed by a talk with Mooni Perry and Hanwen Zhang (of AFSAR) and Thuy-Han Nguyen-Chi.

Two films that emerge from a different time, locality and artistic approach and yet share the lingering common ties of motherhood and migration histories as they explore the myth of single collective origins. The gaze wanders, from “May You Live In Interesting Times”, following a Chinese grandmother as she travels to Indonesia, then Vietnam and later Germany in “Into The Violet Belly”. Here, migration trajectories act like an expulsion from the womb into the unknown sea. The post-screening interactive session with AFSAR and director Thuy-Han Nguyen-Chi will transform the space of cinema into a knowledge-sharing circle on the poetics and politics of migration.

Asian Feminist Studio for Art and Research (AFSAR) connects contemporary art, scholarly discourse, and activism anchored in (Asian) Feminist thought through reading groups, film screenings and an online archival platform.

Thuy-Han Nguyen-Chi works with film, sculpture, installation, performance, and interdisciplinary research to explore the epistemological, aesthetic, and political possibilities of moving image at the intersection of art and science, documentary and fiction, individual and collective histories.