Trinh T. Minh-ha: What About China?

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A weekly drop-in, hands-on art studio open to all ages, facilitated by art therapists and alumni from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). The topics and projects are chosen by you. A wide variety of creative and artistic supplies are Winner, New:Vision Award, CPH:DOX 2022 Winner, Prix Bartók, Jean Rouch International Film Festival 2022 2022 Whitney Biennial In the visually and sonically stunning What About China?, renowned artist and filmmaker Trinh T. Minh-ha revisits Hi8 video footage she shot in rural China in the 1990s to explore the country’s complex and evolving narratives about itself. She draws on Chinese concepts of harmony to guide the project, tracing examples across time, from the round architecture of communal Hakka houses to the Chinese Communist Party’s efforts to reshape rural and urban populations. Weaving these ideas together with poetry, folk songs, testimony, and ritual, Trinh offers a rich and polyphonic reflection on the shifting relations between self, community, and state. Co-presented by SAIC’s Visiting Artists Program and Conversations at the Edge. Additional support provided by the Penny Stamps Speaker Series at the University of Michigan. Followed by a conversation with Trinh T. Minh-ha and Nora Taylor, Alsdorf Professor of South and Southeast Asian Art History at SAIC. 2022, China Format: Digital In English and Mandarin with English subtitles 135 minutes followed by discussion