Vietnamese Mental Health Service (VMHS) Legacy Project

VMHS Legacy Project

2023
HD video, stereo sound, with subtitles
16 mins 34 secs
Vietnamese Northern Lullaby (Ru con miền bắc) sung by: Koa Pham
Sound design: Rob Szeliga
Vietnamese translation: Mai-Thi Nguyen

With thanks for helping at the Reimagining Workshop: Mai-Thi Nguyen, Amie Tran and Amie’s Brother, Chip, Thao, Thao Khuat, Dr Lili Ly, Dr Angela Bryne, Jack Shieh OBE, Quynh Nguyen, Beatrix Pang.

Commissioned by the Vietnamese Mental Health Services (VMHS) to coincide with the closure of the organisation.

This project has led to a series of works including:

-VMHS Legacy Film Project
-Reimaging VMHS Workshop
-Screenings and Talks at Tate Britain, esea contemporary, LUX Moving image
-Teaching unit at the Royal College of Art called ‘Islands of Safety’ with publication booklet
-Publication booklet How to Sleep Faster published by Arcadia Missa Gallery
-Recipes for Life Newham Workshop
-Performances with the VLC Band
-Resettlement Paintings through a mental health approach
-Deptford X Cooking and Language Project

This film explores the history and legacy of the VMHS, a mental health charity set up in 1989 in the UK for Vietnamese communities, weaving interviews with service users and director, Jack Shieh OBE.

The film was made to be screened at the Vietnamese Mental Health Services 35th Anniversary and Farewell Party on Friday 15th September 2023 and VMHS website. It was screened again at the ‘Reimagining Vietnamese Mental Health Workshop’ at the Vietnamese Mental Health Services and Downside Fisher Youth Club on Sunday 1st October 2023 followed by an in conversation with Jack Shieh, Lili Ly, Angela Bryne, Will Pham and Mai-Thi Nguyen. The audiences were invited to take part in a version of ‘Recipes of Life’ workshop over hot pot and the day ended with a reading from ‘Duc Van Minh’, a book project made in collaboraion with Beatrix Pang.

Pham was invited to contribute the full transcipt of the film with image stills as part of ‘How to Sleep Faster Issue 14: Mental Health and Art in Crisis’ edited by Maggie Matić and published by Arcadia Missa Press 2014:

https://arcadiamissa.com/product/how-to-sleep-faster-14/

Late at Tate Britain Lunar New Year

2024
Curated by Trâm Nguyen, June Lam and Tate Collective

Friday 9th February 2024 6-10pm

See full programme in photos.

Film screening of VMHS film followed by conversation with Jack Shieh OBE, Quynh Nguyen, Will Pham and Mai-Thi Nguyen. (in the Grand Saloon).

With thanks to Dr Lili Ly and Dr Angela Byrne.

Photos by Tate (Eugenio Falcioni).

From (Counter-)Archives to Activation

esea contemporary in Manchester
2024

VMHS Legacy Project, 2024,
HD video, stereo sound,
16 mins 57 sec version
Screened as part of a wider series of programs convened by Xiaowen Zhu.

Vietnamese Mental Health Legacy Project film was screened in Manchester as part of esea contemporary, and the East and southeast asian community in Manchester. This theme of activating the archives was very similar to my approach in working with the An Viet Foundation, navigating archival materials and bringing to life new stories. However my work with the VMHS was navigating mental health needs in the here and now (eg using food, music) but also addressing challenges in the archival approach eg safeguarding personal confidential mental health records.

https://www.eseacontemporary.org/projects/from-counter-archives-to-activation

Institutional archives often reinforce narratives rooted in established, centralised, and authoritarian perspectives. They reflect a categorisation system – of documents and accounts – formalised through power-backed discourses. While archives embody power, the act of counter-archiving aims to destabilise their projected authority. Who holds the right to speak, to be documented, to exist not solely as statistics but as lived human experiences? What influences, supports, and undermines archival strategies and models within our society? What is the meaning of authenticity, subjectivity, and hegemony in this context? Can oral history facilitate intertextuality and counter-archiving to re-evaluate the narratives entrenched within institutional structures?

Founded 37 years ago by trailblazing artists, esea contemporary's evolution mirrors a well-trodden path, transitioning from an independent, underground force in Manchester to a state-funded national portfolio organisation. It’s been a journey not without its fair share of setbacks, crises, and repositioning, reflecting the challenges inherent in the very diasporic communities we seek to amplify. Yet, each of these experiences has enriched our perspectives, providing nuanced insights into the coexistence of glory and shadow, the legacy and knowledge gained, and the dynamic interplay between archives and counter-archives.

Entering the second year of programming following the institute’s transformation, we find it opportune to activate our platform through the lens of archives and counter-archives in collaboration with our extensive network of collaborators and co-workers. Throughout our summer programme, from May to August, 2024, we will actively listen to, engage with, speak out about, write down, touch upon, and look into a diverse array of archival and counter-archival materials. This journey aims to highlight a multiplicity of perspectives while charting a course towards a more outward- and forward-looking framework. As we explore these materials, we remain attuned to the complexities of power dynamics, acknowledging the agency to navigate these exchanges with openness and respect. Through our collaboration with artists, curators, thinkers, scholars, and communities, we seek to foreground pluralistic narratives and empower individuals to shape their own histories.

Contributors include Dr Cangbai Wang, Zixin Li, Slavs and Tatars, Hester Yang, Prima Jalichandra-Sakuntabhai, Will Pham, Clare Chun-yu Liu, Sarah Marsh, Nguyễn Trinh Thi, Huang Pang-Chuan, Chung Hong Iu, Prapat Jiwarangsan, Simon Liu, Guangli Liu, Jittarin Wuthiphan, Shireen Seno, Darren Lin, Jasmine Gardner, and Alison Lam.

https://www.eseacontemporary.org/events/an-inverted-journey-of-counter-archiving

Throughout July 2024, esea contemporary's Gallery will feature 'An Inverted Journey of Counter Archiving' as part of our Summer Programme 'From (Counter-) Archives to Activation.' This dynamic programme showcases a selection of 13 moving-image works by artists alongside related archival and visual materials. These selected works offer a critical examination – through an artistic lens and research – which seeks to destabilise entrenched power dynamics and foster a thought-provoking understanding and representation of memory and history.

'An Inverted Journey of Counter Archiving' invites viewers to delve into narratives that diverge from traditional approaches to archiving, offering parallel, decolonising perspectives on historiography.

Programme schedule:

2-6 July, ‘The Undesirables’ by Hester Yang

9-13 July, ‘Appendix A: ocean gazing’ by Prima Jalichandra-Sakuntabhai; ‘VMHS Legacy Project’ by Will Pham

16-20 July, ‘This is China of a particular sort, I do not know’ and ‘Another beautiful dream’ by Clare Chun-yu Liu

23-27 July, ‘Tomorrow’s History’, curated by Sine Screen, featuring works by Nguyễn Trinh Thi, Huang Pang-Chuan, Chung Hong Iu, Prapat Jiwarangsan, Simon Liu, Guangli Liu, Jittarin Wuthiphan, Shireen Seno, and Darren Lin

‘The Undesirables’ by Hester Yang
2023, 17 min, colour digital video, sound

The term 'undesirable' refers to the Home Office file HO 213/926, titled 'Forced Repatriation of Undesirable Chinese Seamen.' It was used to describe a community of Chinese migrant labourers working on British merchant ships during World War II. When the war ended, their presence was perceived as a problem amidst post-war racial anxieties towards migrants and colonial subjects.

In the mid to late 1940s, groups of Chinese seamen would disappear from the streets of Liverpool never to be heard from again. Hundreds of men were separated from their families who lived in the belief that they had been abandoned. The truth remained under protection of the Secrets Act for over half a century. Three generations later, the details and violence of this history can only be pieced together through stories, families’ oral histories, and fragmented archival documents.

Working closely with five families affected by forced repatriations, this project is rooted in their lived experience as well as the ruptures in the wider community. Together, their disjointed first-person accounts form a collective telling of an erased history, serving as testimony not only to the injustice but also to intergenerational trauma and identity loss.

'Appendix A: ocean gazing’ by Prima Jalichandra-Sakuntabhai
2021, 15:46 min, colour digital video, sound

In 'Appendix A: ocean gazing', Prima takes as a point of departure a photograph of their great grand-uncle, Pridi Banomyong, leaning over the edge of the boat that would take him into exile, never to return to Thailand again. Pridi was one of the leaders of the Siamese Revolution of 1932 that transitioned Thailand from an absolute monarchy to constitutional monarchy. Framed by pro-monarchist forces for the murder of the king and accused of being a communist, he fled to Communist China and then to Paris, where he died.

Reflecting on Pridi’s thoughts as his native country slowly receded into the distance, the artist filmed their own journey through the Arizona and California deserts towards the Pacific Ocean at San Pedro Harbour. In San Pedro, they visited sites that allude to or commemorate Asian diasporic communities that have been erased. The Japanese Fishing Village is a chilling example of the systematic racism against Japanese Americans, who were detained in concentration camps in Arizona during World War II. With Pridi’s exile on one hand and the history of Asian diaspora on the West Coast on the other, Prima questions their own desire to build a life in the U.S. when, historically and in the present, the government has implemented systematic exclusions of immigrant communities. The retelling of these narratives reveals the multi-layered forces that govern human migratory patterns: conservative ideologies, repressive governments, war, and violence. Additionally, revolutionary ideals and the yearning for a different life both contribute to the fragmentation of existing communities and the formation of new ones.

The video is an appendix to Prima’s archival project ‘Chloropsis Aurifrons Pridii.’ The archive is built from fictional accounts of the revolution in Yukio Mishima’s novels, Pridi’s out-of-print memoir, fragments of his writing that have been translated into English, and family hearsay.

‘VMHS Legacy Project’ by Will Pham

2023, 16 mins 34 sec with English subtitles, HD video, stereo sound

Commissioned by the Vietnamese Mental Health Services (VMHS) to coincide with the closure of the organisation, this film explores the history and legacy of the VMHS, a mental health charity set up in 1989 in the UK for Vietnamese communities. The film weaves together interviews with service users and the director, Jack Shieh OBE, and reflects upon the organisation's previous projects, such as "Recipes of Life" and "Light Conversations," as alternative forms of mental health approaches. The film is part of a wider series of projects to archive and reimagine the VMHS for a new audience inside and outside of the community.

‘This is China of a particular sort, I do not know’ and ‘Another beautiful dream’ by Clare Chun-yu Liu
2020, 34:01 min, colour digital video, sound
2022, 14 min, colour digital video, sound

'This is China of a particular sort, I do not know' is a postcolonial response to chinoiserie, a decorative style imitating Chinese motifs that was popular in eighteenth-century Europe. The work was filmed at the Royal Pavilion Brighton, a pleasure palace built by George IV based on the idea of illusion – its interior is therefore entirely chinoiserie.

Across five dialogues and one monologue, the artist herself and relevant historical individuals question, miss, argue, and disagree with each other over the representation of 'Chineseness' in the Pavilion’s chinoiserie. Those individuals include King George IV; the Chinese Emperor Chien-lung, who received the Macartney Embassy in 1793; George Macartney, who led the first British diplomatic mission to China; William Alexander, the embassy draughtsman; and Ang, a Ching Dynasty royal family member who also happened to be the artist’s childhood neighbour in Taiwan.

Similarly, the work 'Another beautiful dream' responds to chinoiserie from a postcolonial perspective, questioning its representation of perceived 'Chineseness.' Filmed in situ, this work revisits the historic Chinese wallpaper at Harewood House, a manor house in West Yorkshire. As part of the culture of taste, the artefact plays the role of an exotic other for the English self of the landed gentry in the eighteenth century.

As the wallpaper was Chinese-made for foreign use, self-representation is at stake. The strategy of juxtaposing chinoiserie with the artist’s familial photos from Taiwan, China, and the U.S. questions how one represents oneself in the present and how that negotiates self-representation from the past.

'Tomorrow's History' curated by Sine Screen

'Tomorrow's History' is a two-part shorts programme presented as part of 'Vulnerable Histories', an ongoing series that explores the representation of historical trauma in East and Southeast Asia. This programme brings together experimental works from Taiwan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Thailand, and Hong Kong, delving into a range of personal and collective narratives.

Working with alternative mediums such as animation, digital reenactments, and the reconstruction of archives, the artists actively question the validity and limitations of the indexical documentary image in representing historical events and their impacts. These visually inventive shorts not only portray historical narratives but also seek to document 'history in the making' by highlighting contemporary moments of social change.

From the colonial history in the Philippines, aftermath of the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia, the social movement in Hong Kong, to the White Terror period in Taiwan, the programme seeks to examine how history is documented, narrated, remembered, and erased by juxtaposing the historical with the present-day.

Photograph by Jules Lister. Image courtesy of esea contemporary.

Film stills

Film screening at the Vietnamese Mental Health Services 35th Anniversary and Farewell Party on Friday 15th September 2023

Reimagining Vietnamese Mental Health Workshop at the Vietnamese Mental Health Services and Downside Fisher Youth Club on Sunday 1st October 2023

Late at Tate Britain Lunar New Year
Friday 9th February 2024 6-10pm, Tate Britain

Film screening followed by conversation with Jack Shieh OBE, Quynh Nguyen, Will Pham and Mai-Thi Nguyen. Curated by Trâm Nguyen, June Lam and Tate Collective

With thanks to Dr Lili Ly and Dr Angela Byrne.

Photos by Tate (Eugenio Falcioni).

Installation views and event information at Tate Britain Lunar New Year 2024 curated by Tram Nguyen, June Lam and Tate Collective.

Photograph by Jules Lister. Image courtesy of esea contemporary.

Islands Of Safety Workshop at the RCA

2024

Workshop for MA Sculpture students at the RCA.

I was invited by tutor Whiskey Chow to lead a 3 hour creative workshop for a group of 15 students as part of the annual Festus programme for MA Sculpture and part of Whiskey’s unit, NESTING: (MIS)PLACEMENT, (DIS)EMBODIMENT, (RE)NEGOTIATION, (RE)IMAGINATION, AND (RE)DIRECTION.

My workshop titled ‘Islands Of Safety’, included activities that bring connection amongst students borrowing from mental health frameworks, ‘Migration of Identity’, and creating zones of connection to help aid transformation.

This included an icebreaker string and dialogue web, an introduction to the work of the Vietnamese Mental Health Services (and demonstration of how to make Vietnamese lemonade-Recipes of Life), and a Body Mapping Drawing excercise.

These approaches continue my exploration of the Vietnamese Mental Health Services, and ways in which methodologies around ‘well-being’ and culturally sensitive approaches can be used in psychoeducational frameworks to explore how to support artists as people, and as individuals, from the perspective of displacement, migration and diaspora.

Newham Recipes for Life