On Nhà Sàn Collective, museum policy and independent art in Vietnam
By Ian Tee

Bùi Kim Ðĩnh is a researcher and independent curator based in Hanoi and Berlin. Between 2006 and 2009, she ran Studio Thọ, a contemporary art gallery in Hanoi's Old Quarter. Kim Ðĩnh is also a member of the Asian contemporary art platform NON Berlin, and sits on the advisory board of Sàn Art, an artist-run space founded by Dinh Q. Lê. She is currently a Ph.D. candidate at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Göttingen University.

In this interview, Kim Ðĩnh speaks about her experiences in the Hanoi art scene as well as her research on museum policy and independent art in Vietnam.

Archaeological survey, discovery of dolmen in Đông Anh province Hà Nội in May 2005. Photo by Bùi Kim Đĩnh.

You started your career as an archaeologist. How did you end up getting involved in contemporary art?
I have been familiar with art since childhood. It was a connection that came from my family. My dad is a creative person who used to compose music and draw while my mother worked at a television broadcasting company, and we talked about art at home. However, my mother discouraged my sibling and I from becoming professional artists, as she saw how many artists ended up working as contractors who served the propaganda machine.

When I was a young student in the mid-1990s, I worked on sales at a commercial gallery in Hanoi. The tourism industry was booming at that time and the gallery primarily catered to tourists. Many artworks were also bought up by corporations looking to decorate their offices, and they mainly came from rapidly developing cities such as Singapore and Hong Kong.

I wished much to work as an archaeologist, but institutions for archaeology were unwilling to give me a position. They either said directly to my face that they did not want to hire women, or they simply accepted an untrained relative of their superiors instead of me. The state saw value in archaeology because of interest shored up by tourism and government policies that focus on developing national identity. Since the 1990s, there have been many archaeological excavations and I got to work on different projects through friends and colleagues in the field. After graduation, I worked at kindergartens to earn a living, and still did archaeological fieldwork during the school holidays as a hobby.

In 2004, I was invited to work as a researcher and curator at the museum in Hanoi's University of Social Sciences and Humanities. Unfortunately, I soon realised that they did not want me to work as a researcher but instead, a treasurer and administrator. It was a disappointing experience because I thought it was a chance to establish something different, since it was a newly founded museum.

I left the state-sector job after a year and returned to the kindergarten, which was a better working environment and where I earned much more for doing similar tasks. During our lunch breaks, I often complained to my colleagues about the state of museums and art galleries in Vietnam. My boss grew tired of my rants and offered a space belonging to her husband's company in Hanoi's Old Quarter free of charge, allowing me to realise my "museum dream".

An exhibition opening at Studio Thọ in January 2009. Image courtesy of Studio Thọ.

That space became a contemporary art gallery called Studio Thọ, which operated from 2006 to 2009. Could you describe the art scene at that time? And what did you learn from the experience of running the gallery?
If there was a silver lining from my time working at the university museum, it would be that I got to meet my future-husband Thomas Ulbrich, who happened to be there as a visitor. He was engaged with the museum scenes of South Korean and Vietnam, and helped build the collection database at the Museum of Royal Antiquities in Hue. Together, we founded Studio Thọ and the space was actually named after him. We didn't want to call it a gallery because that term is too closely associated with commercial activity as well as the types of kitsch and "exotic" paintings sold to tourists. There were many such establishments in the Old Quarter.

The art scene then was diverse and many art practitioners were eager to learn something new. Luckily, during my time working in the university museum, I attended summer courses organised at the Vietnam Museum of Ethnography in Hanoi, founded by Professor Nguyễn Văn Huy. In the summer courses, international experts gave workshops on topics such as ethnicity, exhibition design and other professional museum practices, which complemented my experience of running Studio Thọ.

It should be noted that in the mid-2000s and arguably, even today, the legal framework for contemporary art is not yet established. The government cannot adapt with how art is changing. Here is a funny anecdote from 2008, as we prepared for Lê Võ Tuân's solo exhibition 'Grey Movement. The young Saigon-based artist wanted to show his first piece of video art alongside 40 paintings. For every exhibition, we were required to seek permission from the authorities and they were puzzled by the idea of video art. They did not have a player to view the work and simply asked for the video to be removed from the show. We also had to remove one painting because the man in it looked like Hồ Chí Minh... When I relayed the information to the artist, he was bewildered because Mao Zedong's fashion was the only type of garment available during the Subsidised Period in Vietnam!

Needless to say, there were many negotiations between me and the authorities in the four years running Studio Thọ. The process was frustrating for both parties, and one day, I received a piece of document meant for internal circulation. It said that one does not need to go through the censors if it wasn't an exhibition but a "display". It was merely a matter of word choice what one decides to call it. I kept the document and we stopped asking for permission from then on!

Exhibition view of 'In One's Breath – Nothing Stands Still' by Tuấn Mami at Heritage Space in January 2017. Photo courtesy of Skylines With Flying People 3.

Another major project is 'Skylines With Flying People 3' (2014-2018), the third edition of Nhà Sàn Collective's interdisciplinary art initiative. Arlette Quynh-Anh Tran and Roger Nelson were invited as guest curators for this edition. Could you talk about Nhà Sàn Collective's evolution and the context behind 'Skylines'?
Nhà Sàn collective originated from Nhà Sàn Studio, and its name translates to mean "standing house". It was a private house belonging to artist Nguyễn Mạnh Đức, the father of artist Phương Linh. In 1992, the space also doubled as a workshop for producing art and craft products. After the opening of Vietnam, Đức left his job as a state contractor and became a dealer of craft products and sculptures. However, his house remained open to artists and friends who used it for experimental performances, installations and music. Nguyen Mạnh Đức and artist-curator Trần Lương only officially named the space Nhà Sàn Studio in 1998.

They dealt with the authorities by saying that the activities in Nhà Sàn Studio were "art in process", so it was not really art. It was also difficult for state censors to categorise and control the space because the artist's family also lived there. Artists were drawn to the cosy, familial atmosphere. In 2010, a female artist did a nude performance which caused a media sensation and the complete shutdown of Nhà Sàn Studio. Even casual meal gatherings were not allowed.

Refusing to give in to harsh government action, Phương Linh and some of the younger artists came together to establish Nhà Sàn Collective. In 2013, they opened an alternative art space in Zone 9, a creative district amidst abandoned factories. It was only open for six months as a fire accident in Zone 9 caused another shutdown. The 'Skylines 1 and 2' (2010 and 2012) happened against the backdrop of these changes. Its name is inspired by Trần Dần's 1987 poem, which reflects the desire for creative freedom amidst a suffocating atmosphere.

In 2014, Nhà Sàn Collective invited me to come on board as a project manager for Skylines 3. I am based mostly in Berlin with my family, but I keep in touch with artists in Vietnam. In Berlin, I enrolled in another Masters course in museum management and communication. The degree helped me systematise my prior knowledge and experiences, and gave me a global outlook on how the art system functioned in different countries. I shared what I learnt with friends in Vietnam and advised them on writing grant proposals, fundraising, legal issues etc. 'Skylines 3' was the first time Nhà Sàn Collective engaged a professional manager in their initiatives.

How would you evaluate the efficacy of initiatives such as 'Skylines 3'?
There are different ways of evaluating success. I must say that 'Skylines 3' was completely different from the first two editions. There were three parts to the project, helmed by artists, curators and scholars respectively. It was a challenge to learn how to work with each of these stakeholders and enhance their unique contributions. In total, more than 40 people were involved, including volunteers from different venue partners.

There was also significantly more funding in 'Skylines 3', and hence greater responsibility for the outcome. For instance, an artist could just run workshops and conduct an open studio as part of 'Skylines 1' because patrons did not expect much in terms of material outcome. However, there were more bureaucratic processes and formal structures in place for 'Skylines 3', we produced exhibition catalogues, organised talks and followed up on the events with reports. These professional demands raised the bar for everyone, but also inevitably led to more tensions and difficulties in handling relationships. We learnt how to run art projects with different kinds of organisational structures.

Exhibition view of 'Inner Lines' by Desire Machine Collective at NON Berlin in January 2018, curated by Bùi Kim Đĩnh. Image courtesy of NON Berlin.

You are currently curating 'Crossing a Daydream', an exhibition dealing with transnationalities and multiple realities experienced by Vietnamese, Vietnamese American and American Vietnamese artists. Are you able to share more details about this project?
The idea came from Zhuangzi's famous story 'The Butterfly Dream', in which the protagonist Zhuang Zhou dreamt that he was a butterfly and suddenly woke up. Zhuang Zhou later reflected upon whether it was him dreaming that he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming that it was Zhuang Zhou. I relate this story to intermingling, transnational identities which are increasingly common with globalisation. These identities are often borne out of different forms of violence such as war, forced immigrations and other involuntary experiences.

Vietnam happens to be the focus of my research, but these are experiences that people from around the world can relate to. Two of the four artists are from the Vietnamese diaspora now in the United States, or what some would call "boat people". One is from Vietnam, who studied in the United States and returned home. The last artist lives in the suburbs of Hanoi whose work deals with local customs and practices that are disappearing in the face of urban development. As such, the exhibition captures different perspectives from the local to the global as well as experiences that are transcultural and transnational.

I would like to present the exhibition in Berlin and have found a project space founded by two Korean artists that can host it. However, it is difficult to secure funding because the artists are not based in Germany and the independent space does not have much budget to realise the show. It is currently on hold with the Covid-19 pandemic, and we are still finding ways to finance the exhibition.

I'd like to shift gear to talk about the question of livelihood as an independent researcher and curator. How do you sustain your practice? Do you take on additional jobs to supplement your income?
My interest and objective has always been education, even when we ran Studio Thọ in the mid-2000s. That said, we sold well and I was proud that we could support some artists through the gallery. It helped them afford materials and open studios. However, I made a living through sources outside of art, dabbling in real estate and dealing with antiquities.

After moving to Germany and graduating with my second Masters, I received an offer to work as a researcher at an institution and later a three-year scholarship for conducting my PhD research. This allowed me to dedicate my time entirely on independent research. Right now, I focus more on writing my dissertation than on curating. Dealing with antiquities and antique books is still our main source of income.

Warm celebrations of the 42th Anniversary of the Southern Liberation South and the National Unification, taken in Saigon in May 2017. Photo by Bùi Kim Đĩnh.

In 2014, you presented a paper titled 'Role of Private Museums as Civil Society Organisations in Heritage' at a conference at Academia Sinica, Taiwan. What are your reflections on the topic?
The museum system in Vietnam largely functions as a political instrument of the government. All state museums around the world are more or less political instruments, but their character is different in Vietnam as the state is led by a single party. In the 1990s, the policy was tweaked to cater to tourism and museums fell under the supervision of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism. Until now, education is not the museum's primary role.

To me, private museums are important because they provide new input to the museum scene, even if they are motivated by individual interests or corporate marketing. Private companies are able to implement them more quickly than the government; though admittedly, these actions are limited by personal agendas. There are also initiatives by artists, such as the Muong Cultural Space Museum, founded and run by artist Nguyễn Đức Hiếu. The artist bought a piece of land in the countryside of Hanoi when prices were not so expensive and turned it into a museum that hosts residency programmes and workshops. It remains very active.

The International Council of Museums (ICOM) defines a museum as "a non-profit, permanent institution in the service of society and its development, open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and its environment for the purposes of education, study and enjoyment". Unfortunately, none of the museums in Vietnam serve all of these functions, or not yet at least.

Sàn Art space in August 2016. Photo by Bùi Kim Đĩnh.

You are also on the advisory board of Sàn Art since 2018. What are your roles and responsibilities?
I really appreciate what Dinh Q. Lê, the founder of Sàn Art, has done. Sàn Art is a non-profit organisation with a strong focus on art education. He has supported many young art practitioners in Vietnam and in the region. Personally, he helped a lot with my doctoral research and we developed a friendship during my fieldwork. In exchange, if he or anyone in the Sàn Art team needs advice or help from me, they can just contact me casually. It is a very flexible arrangement and we support each other in ways we can.

Cù Rú, an artist bar in Saigon, taken in June 2017. Photo by Bùi Kim Đĩnh.

Speaking about your doctoral research, it focuses on independent art in Vietnam since the 1990s. Could you talk about specific concerns practitioners, artists, curators, gallerists had and how they navigated around them?
Before 1986, there was no independent art because Vietnam was in a completely closed system, also known as the Subsidy System. The state was the only producer and patron for the arts, and artists must be in the fine art association to be recognised as one. It was almost impossible to be an artist outside of this system because one could not buy art materials nor exhibit their artworks. There was independent thinking, but not independent art.

I must say that tourism policies formed a crucial foundation for the development of independent art. In my opinion, commercialisation is positive because it gave artists something else to react to on top of state control. The definition of art became much looser and there was more space for it to grow. Independent art developed in the arena between the commercial and state markets in the 1990s. My research examines how this kind of art negotiated space, form as well as national and international forces. Embarking on a doctoral project was also a funding solution that allowed me to go back to Vietnam and work on 'Skylines 3'.

In Vietnam, there is no infrastructure for contemporary art. We have two universities teaching art in Hanoi and Saigon, a third in Hue is at risk of being closed because there are no students enrolled. In these state institutions, there is no discourse in art, aesthetics and form, even Vietnamese traditional art is not taught systematically. The curriculum focuses on handicraft techniques as well as Marxist-Leninist and Ho Chi Minh's ideology. Most artists whom I worked with are Vietnamese diasporic artists who returned, Vietnamese artists who studied abroad and come back, local Vietnamese self-taught artists who reached out to learn about contemporary art or Vietnam-based international artists. They are all building a vivid landscape for Vietnamese contemporary art.

There is no state support nor any tax incentive policy for art foundations and educational initiatives. The government sees contemporary art as a threat because of its potential for criticism and is only concerned with controlling it. Today, the arena is much more complex with forces from the communist government, specific agendas from different foundations, geopolitics in the global playground and rampant developing capitalism in the country that recognise the benefits art brings.

What are your thoughts on the future of art spaces and contemporary practices in Vietnam?
I have a positive outlook for the future. Contemporary art has room to develop but the question is how? Initiatives have been largely individual and the decision to build a state museum for contemporary art was floated in 2015 and remains on paper. There is little impetus from the government's perspective. The first step for museums is to move beyond serving tourism and become places of education.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.