“House of Mother Tongue, House of Other Tongue”
Hoang Tran Nguyen
29 Oct → 18 Dec 2022

A paper poster in English and Vietnamese to save the Vietnamese bilingual program at Footscray Primary School, stuck to a yellow pole.
Hoang Tran Nguyen, ‘House of Mother Tongue, House of Other Tongue’, 2022. Image courtesy of artist.

Presented across West Space and Footscray Community Arts Centre, House of Mother Tongue, House of Other Tongue is a project brought together by Hoang Tran Nguyen that addresses colonial legacies of monolingualism and its impact on minority languages, power and subjectivity.

House of Mother Tongue, House of Other Tongue includes a day-long Language and Community Symposium facilitated by language advocacy group ViệtSpeak at Footscray Community Arts, and Hát Xe Buýt, a ‘singing bus’, co-curated with Lana Nguyen and hosted by language advocates, musicians, poets, educators and local choirs as audiences are transported between the venues on select days.

Read Sebastian Henry-Jones's essay Speaking two things at once in English or in Vietnamese.

Program

Hát Xe Buýt (Singing Bus) Schedule

Footscray Community Arts to West Space, and West Space to Footscray Community Arts, 12, 19, 26 November

Hát Xe Buýt (Singing Bus) is an artist-led bus-ride presented as part of Hoang Tran Nguyen's 2022 West Space Commission, 'House of Mother Tongue, House of Other Tongue.

Curated by Hoang Tran Nguyen and Lana Nguyen, the bus ferried audiences between the two locations of the exhibition, West Space and Footscray Community Arts. Eac journey was hosted by performers and artists across cultural and social movements, engaging guests on notions of place and practices of language reclamation and justice. Hosts included πO, Timmah Ball, Beth Sometimes, wani toaishara, and Tania Cañas.

Download the Singing Bus catalogue.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEii-X5DnUA

ViệtSpeak Language and Community Symposium

Sunday 27 November @ Footscray Community Arts

Emerging from the loss of the Vietnamese Bilingual Program and based in Melbourne’s west, advocacy group ViệtSpeak will present the Language and Community Symposium. The day’s program will feature workshops by Đất Nước Collective, Thảo Nguyễn and Kids’ Own Publishing. Three discussion panels by leading scholars, educators and artists will speak of localized language practices and forms of language justice. Panels will be lead by writer Chi Vu and scholars Helen Ngo and Julie Choi.

Listen to Hoang Tran Nguyen and Sebastian Henry-Jones speak with Leila Doneo Baptist on 3CR’s breakfast show:

https://soundcloud.com/west-space/3cr-interview-hoang-tran-nguyen-sebastian-henry-jones?si=d5eb8ebf4e424243aef09c518cb8bbd1&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

House of Mother Tongue, House of Other Tongue is a West Space Commission, supported by the Australia Council for the Arts. Presented as part of NEIGHBOURHOOD, a celebration of contemporary art, music and performance across the western suburbs of Melbourne presented by the Substation and Footscray Community Arts. Based around expanded ideas of language and translation, NEIGHBOURHOOD reflects the current moment and highlights artistic practice in Melbourne.

Two individuals sit on fold out chairs. One is sitting crossed-legged speaking into a microphone with a hand out gesturing while speaking. A TV is seen to the far left of him. The other individual sits on the right, intensely listening, with a speaker directly next him. We see the blurred figure of a person in the peripheral listening.
White bus parked on the road in front of a brick building with eighteen windows and trees surrounding. The bus door is open with one person is sitting inside, a woman is leaning on the bus and a man is standing on the left looking at the bus.

Hoang Tran Nguyen is an artist working in social practice to address overlapping cultural histories, politics of place and the role of the art-worker. His work has featured in self-initiated projects arts festivals and galleries. He is currently a PhD candidate at the Victorian College of the Arts (University of Melbourne).