Arlette Quỳnh-Anh Trần
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Linh Giám Tàng Thư / The Curator Ghost (2024)
Video with sound
17 min 50 sec
The Curator Ghost is a monochrome science-fiction film moving between 2075 and Vietnam in 1960 and 1979. In the future, an agent searches for an archaeological hammer believed to hold evidence of the origins of a nation and its people. The search leads back to archaeologist Nghiêm Thẩm, whose life and research become entangled with this journey across time. Blending historical fragments with imagined memory, the film explores how ideas of origin, nationhood and identity are shaped by ideology, intimacy and personal choice. Nghiêm Thẩm emerges as a ghostly figure through whom questions of belonging, freedom and the desire to be remembered travel across generations.
Commissioned by Prospect.6 New Orleans
Video excerpt, 3 min 29 sec
Video and film stills courtesy the artist.