 Hi, hello everyone and welcome to the fourth lecture in the Decolonizing Curating and the Museum in Southeast Asia series, which is jointly organized by the Southeast Asia Art Academic Program, Soares University of London, and the Asian Civilization Museum, Singapore. Let me just share my screen really quickly to show you, you know, we still have two more talks in the series after today. You can scan the QR code in the top right hand corner of the screen just to get the registration links for the next two, which is next Thursday and then the Thursday after. I just want to thank our Ford Foundation and the Chris Foundation for their support for this webinar series. And you know, just because people have asked before, we are recording today's session and it will be made available on the Soares Center for Southeast Asia page afterwards. So don't worry, you can access it afterwards too. So my name is Conan Chiang, I'm the curator at the ACM for Southeast Asia, and now we hope you're a host and moderator for this online event. Today we're very pleased to have Duyen Nguyen with her lecture, re-contextualizing the Dong Duong Buddhist Art Gallery at the Museum of Chan Sculpture in Da Nang. And after Duyen gives her talk, we will have a response by Dr. Rie Nakamura. And finally at the end of the webinar today, we will take some questions from the audience. So throughout the program today, you can feel free to type your questions into the Q&A chat box. So make sure you type it in the Q&A box and not the chat box, and then we will take your questions afterwards. So without further ado, let me introduce Duyen, who is a PhD candidate in the Department of History of Art and Archaeology at the School of Oriental and Asian African Studies, SOAS, University of London. She is also a staff member of the Museum of Chan Sculpture in Vietnam. Her research focuses on the sculptural art of Chan Ba and other museological issues. So Duyen, over to you. You can unmute your microphone and turn on your camera and proceed with the presentation. Okay. Okay. Do you hear me? Yeah. So good evening from Vietnam. I'm Duyen Nguyen. I'm a staff of the Museum of Chan Sculpture in Da Nang as Konrad already introduced, but currently I'm on leave to write my thesis. As part of the lecture series Decolonizing Curating and the Museum in Southeast Asia, I'm very happy today to bring in a case study from Vietnam. Thanks, Stephen and Konrad, for inviting me to this series. My presentation today is titled Recontextualizing the Dong Yun Buddhist Art Gallery at the Museum of Chan Sculpture in Da Nang. The lecture will include four main sections. The first... Sorry, Duyen. Just to interrupt, you have to share your slides. We aren't really... Oh, sure. Really? Yeah. Just click a share screen on the bottom of the Zoom. Sorry. Sorry. Yeah. Got it now. Thanks. Okay. Sorry. Sorry for a technical error. So my lecture today will include four main sections. First, I will briefly introduce the Dong Yun Buddhist Monastery and the collecting of religious fragments at this site so that you all have a general view about the site of Dong Xiong, the practice of Buddhism at this site in the 9th and 10th century, and the excavation works in 1902. Second, I will talk about the display history of the Dong Yun Gallery at the Chan Museum in two periods. From 1936 to 2004 and from 2009 to the present day. Third, I will address some controversial issues related to the curation and display of Dong Yun Buddhist artifacts at this gallery, particularly seeing history opening in 2009. And finally, I will propose a decolonizing approach in the display of Dong Yun Buddhist Art Gallery. Throughout my lecture, I would argue that the current display is an attempt to recontextualize the original landscape of Dong Yun Monastery and the significance of Dong Yun Buddhist art tradition. However, due to the use of modern museum Roscoe devices in sufficient interpretation and the gaps caused by absent objects, what resulted in a decontextualized display, which is likely inaccessible to museum viewers. My analysis of the display also aimed to provide a context within which we can see problems in the curation of this gallery from the colonial to the most colonial periods. And now let's start. The remains of the Dong Yun Buddhist Monastery are located at the village of Dong Yun in Tang Ben District, Wan Nam province, about 65 kilometers to the south of the Chan Museum today. This is an important Buddhist establishment of the Chan Ba Kingdom in central Vietnam, at least from the late 9th century to the early 10th century. The inscription C66, as you can see here, this inscription found at the site reveals that King Zha Zha Indra Vakman II came to power in the year 875 CE and he established the Indra Burah dynasty. The king ordered the construction of this Buddhist temple complex in dedication to Laxmintra Lokeshvara. Lokeshvara was the Buddhist deity of compassion and also the protector of the founding king of Indra Burah dynasty. The practice of Buddhism flowered in Dong Yun in this period, but this could have happened earlier. The Dong Yun complex was abandoned since the late 9th century and gradually collapsed. It was seriously destroyed during the Vietnam War. Today, the only significant remains at the site is this gate tower. Here is the gate tower and the inscription C66. So in 1902, Henry Vakman II and Sha Ke Bo conducted an excavation at Dong Yun and collected a large number of sandstone sculptures. The two publications as I list here provide photos of the site together with extract from excavation journals. The excavation revealed the plant of this Buddhist temple complex. The monastery was built on an eight square axis about 1300 meters long consisting of three successive enclosures. Each one surrounded by a brick wall like this is an enclosure tree lying to the east of the complex and it has an assembly hall for Buddhist monks which is called the Vihara. A pedestal with narrative panels about the life of the Buddha Sakyasakya Sakyambuni statue were found inside this enclosure together with other fragments of Buddhist monks, Dhammapalas and Divas. An enclosure too has the vestiges of an open building properly functioning at Mandaba for the main temple. Four statues of the Vaharapala or the guardians of the gateways were excavated in this section. And finally, this is the enclosure one standing to the west of the complex. It's consisted of a gate tower as you see here, a central Virochana temple and a main temple are dedicated to La Lokesvara and also there are auxiliary shrines surrounding the main temple. Bhakmanthi and his team found here a pedestal assembled from blocks of stone showing narrative of the Buddha life and sculptures of Sittic Devar and Arhat. So here are some photos of the Dongyuan site during the excavation in 1902. Photos are today reserved at the archival center of the Eco-Francilla Stream Orion in Paris. There can also be seen online if you visit this website of the Eco-Francilla Stream Orion come to this link and find the forum Vietnam and search for Dongyuan Oichamba and then you can see more photos about the excavation in 1902. So, inscriptions and sculptures at Dongyuan show a clear evidence of the emergence of Vaharajana, a strand of Mahayana Buddhism in Chamba. Buddhist imagery is also associated with the Dongyuan art style in the stylistic development of Chamba art. Buddhist sculptures found at this site show a very distinctive iconographic program thus specifying to the encoters of Buddhism and Hinduism and the mingles of Chamba indigenous elements together with Buddhist art tradition of China, Ajava, and India. So after the excavation in 1902, sculptures were moved to the music Chamba Turang to be displayed at the Dongyuan Gallery. Another sculpture will also send to the museums in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City and overseas museum. The music Chamba Turang was opened to the public in 1919 and is co-expanded in the year 1935 with the addition of two wings here Mi Son and Thap Mon. These two wings were added to display the sculptures collected from the site of Mi Son and Thap Mon Binding. The Dongyuan Gallery, as you see here, the Dongyuan galleries were added to the back of the original building at this time. The installation of the Dongyuan Gallery started in 1935 and finished in 1946, the year when the museum was officially inaugurated under the name Muzir Haribok Montye. So here are some photos showing the installation work in this year. We can see here the pedestal from the enclosure one, enclosure one, and two statues of Dvarapala from enclosure two, and a Buddha head. And this is a giant Buddha that was discovered in enclosure three. And here is some stone block from the pedestal found in enclosure three. And in this photo, we can see this is the head of a Buddha that I will discuss later in this presentation. And this photo of the Dongyuan Gallery before the year 2004 when we started a very large-scale refurbishment for this gallery. Yeah, so these photos show the Dongyuan Gallery back to those years before the FSB project. So as you can see in the photos, this old gallery had some shortcomings. First, stone block of the pedestal of enclosure three was separated into different groups like here, one and here. And this separation into different groups break the original composition of this pedestal. Second, sculptures were fist to the walls or cement blinks and they were poorly lit. Third, narrow circulation space has caused box to next in this area here and here. The transition from other galleries to the Dongyuan galleries. The box to next block the flower and view of the pedestal. And the FSB project started in 2004. It was sponsored by the French government with technical assistance from the staff of the Gimai Museum of Asian Art in Paris and the local from Saint-East Stream, Orion. The project enabled the Chinese Museum to modernize and reorganize the Dongyuan Gallery so that it can better represent the side of Dongyuan and the religious and aesthetic significances of Buddhist artifacts found at the site which the old gallery failed to do. So this is the floor plan of the Dongyuan Buddhist Art Gallery following the FSB project. Sculptures have been grouped into many clusters as you can see on my screen. Group one, two and three represent sculpture excavated from enclosure one, two and three respectively. Group one A consisted of a statue of a diva and two broken statues which were discovered in the auxiliary strides of enclosure one. And group four, group four, group four featured the bronze statue of Tara or last-minute Ralu Khetvara. And this Buddhist, I mean this bronze were found in 1878. Before entering the Dongyuan Gallery, visitors are directed to walk through a small space showing black and white rings of excavation of Dongyuan and Mi Sen from 2002 to 2004. This is an open track fit pattern, an open track fit pattern. So visitors can move freely within the exhibition space. However, in terms of organizational polarity, it can be argued that the grouping of sculptures into three main sections, one, two, three, plus an auxiliary space and a devotional icon space help visitors to contextualize the original layout of the Dongyuan Monastery and better visualize where the sculptures were excavated at the site. Yeah, so this slide shows how the galleries look like seeing the completion of the FSP project to the present day. It's remained the same except some small changes. So as compared to the old gallery, this new one looked much better, right? As you can see, the new galleries look like a modernist display, walls are painted in white, narrow windows are set high near the ceiling to limit the natural light in daytime. Spotlights are used to illuminate the sculptures on view, especially when it's getting dark. And sculptures are positioned on high length or pedestal which distance the objects from the viewers and at the same time, reinforcing the ideas of religious objects at untouchable and untenable. These museological devices are used to enhance the sacred and small fear of a Buddhist temple and at the same time to highlight the aesthetic values of the objects on view. However, the recontextualizing of the Dongyuan Buddhist artifacts inside the museum has also posed some controversial issues. First of all, white is a signifier of a modern art gallery. White walls and bustle shade create a neutral exhibition environment. This neutral environment had to elevate the sandstone sculptures under lighting effects and strengthen the aesthetic experience of an art gallery. However, it's contrast with the asthmatic fear of the traditional Buddhist temple, which is often dark. Thus, the Dongyuan galleries evokes the ambience of a Buddhist art gallery rather than a Buddhist temple. However, religious objects are desacralized and decontextualized once being relocated inside a museum. The sculptures from Dongyuan Monastery have been isolated from their original contents in this secular setting. They are transformed into works of art and they are appreciated for their aesthetic and art historical values. Their social and religious functions are much reduced, if not deep right, when they are viewed inside the museum at three-dimensional objects. The problem of decontextualization is also caused by minimal interpretation and the formalist approach that lies behind curatorial graphics. These galleries only had two introductory panels, one here as you see and the other here. So the two introductory panels with the same content located in parallel at two wings. Each panel is printed in three languages, Vietnamese, French, and English, giving a brief introduction about the location and the layout of the Dongyuan Monastery, the development of Mahayana Buddhism in Myanmar, and the collecting of Buddhist artifacts in their early 20th century. All the information are summarized and condensed within a few lines. There are no group labels for a cluster of objects to explain that each group represents each enclosure and the sculpture found inside each enclosure. An objects label only mentions the objects name, the provenance, the dating, material, and assessment number as you can see. I give two samples and on each objects label we just see the title or the name of the objects in three languages and other information include provenance, dating, and assessment number here. So what we can say, yeah, and two more two more objects label, one before the refurbishment and one after the refurbishment, but basically they look the same with the same information. Only the color look different. So what we may say here, I would say that museum viewers are likely to find it very difficult to understand the significance of the sculptures in the gallery due to this lack of contextualization. By offering minimal interpretation, the curator somehow turned Buddhist sculptures into artworks and invites the act of viewing. This approach to our appreciation may be favor at art museum. However, it might make some viewers feel intimidated because the objects are unreachable given that don't use Buddhist imagery might not be familiar with contemporary audiences. And another controversial issue at this gallery in the midst of some statues, here I take three examples. The first one is the divas at Group 1A here, Group 1A. Currently, this group show three objects, a complex statue of a deity called diva, and two statue pairs with remains of legs and lower bodies. The excavation in 1902 revealed the structural remains of seven auxiliary thrice on the inner face of enclosure 1. And here, one of the seven auxiliary thrice surrounding the main temple at enclosure 1. And each thrice were probably dedicated to a deity. So a group of identical statues were found at this enclosure. They could be planetary deities or directional guardians. They are debated, sifting in the position of ease with the right hands touching the right knee and the left hands hold an attribute like a dagger. All deities have the same head halo, like here. All deities have the same head halo, brows, ear ornaments, facial expressing. After the excavation in 1902, the e-fail disposed some identical statues and fragments. The most intact ones were kept for display at the Dong Jun Gallery at the Chiang Museum, where others entered the collection of the Ritford Museum in Switzerland and the Cleverland Museum of Art in the US here. You can see this is the one at the Chiang Museum and this one now at the Cleverland Museum of Art in the US. And this one belongs to the collection of the Ritford Museum in Zurich. And the Ritford Museum also have a bust of a deity probably belong to this same group in their collection. The second example of mixing statues is the two statues of Bodhisattva sifting in the royal ease here, the photo of these sculptures. They were found as a symmetrical pair, once were kept for display at the Dong Jun Gallery and the other has slept Vietnam many years ago. And later it entered the collection of the Ritford Museum. So this one today belong to the collection of Ritford Museum and this one currently on view at the Chiang Museum and its location is here on the pedestal of Group 3. So the Dong Jun Gallery today display the group of divas and the statue of Bodhisattva as I mentioned. However, there is no label to explain the excavation context, the meaning of these statues or the absence of other statues that were once belong to one group and related to each other for religious function. And the third example of mixing artists in the Dong Jun Gallery is the head of the giant Buddha. This Buddha were found in two separate parks here. So this is the giant Buddha which were found at the site. The Buddha were found in two separate parks, the legs buried at the enclosure tree and the toxel lying in the central temple of enclosure one. This is a complex one after a worker already assembled the bishops together. The head were broken before the excavation in 1902. Two heads were also found at the site. However, neither of them seem to belong to this Buddha. After the excavation, one head was sent to the Giang Mian Museum of Asian Art in Paris and the other was displayed at the Dong Jun Gallery for a while before it was sent to the Luy Phinoc Museum which is today the National Museum of Vietnamese History in Hanoi. So this photo shows the giant Buddha with a seaman head. These seaman heads were added to the toxel to the body of the giant Buddha after its arrival to the the Chiang Museum in 1936. When the Dong Jun Gallery was refurbished, the seaman head was removed and the statue returned to its original condition without the head. Recently, the Chiang Museum met a replica of the Buddha head from the Museum of Vietnamese History in Hanoi and put this head onto the body of the Buddha, though this is not a good match. The display of this reproduced head has caused many debates regarding the integrity, the authenticity, and the aesthetics of the statue. Yeah, so in this slide I will show you. This is the photo of the giant Buddha together which are the pieces collected from Enclosetree that I took during the opening ceremony of the Dong Jun Gallery many years ago. This Buddha head belongs to the collection of the Giang Mian Museum and this one today belongs to the collection of the History Museum in Hanoi. So we are not sure if any of the heads belong to the giant Buddha and today the Buddha on display at the Chiang Museum with a head reproduced from the original one in Hanoi as you can see. Okay, I will move to the next part and in addition to the mixing statue I discussed, the Dong Jun Gallery also showed the absence of the people who took part in the excavation in 1902. Archival photos and excavation journals show the participation of local people, mainly site workers which were called cullis in addition to French archaeologists and here, here are some photos to illustrate my point. Like this one show Chuck Cabot supervising the clearing at Enclosure 1 in September 1902 and this one show workers or cullis making equipment in front of the central temple to evacuate the rubbles or this one show Bob Montier and other site workers removing a sculpture as soon as soon on 17 September 1902. However, the gallery has almost silenced the work of these local people. The small photo is this bit gives us a glimpse into the picture of colonial archaeology yeah here in this section the photo exhibit and so we just have a glimpse into the picture of colonial archaeology with the leading role of French people. However, we also want to know about the participation of the local communities back to those years. So what we should do what we should do to better this gallery. In this section I would like to propose a decolonizing approach in the display of the Don Bien Buddhist Art Gallery. First, it is about contextualization which I have discussed at length in the last sections. So I think it's necessary to diversify information for mass and content to provide more contextual information on the sculptures on display. Curating an exhibition is not only about installing objects but also about providing information about what is installed. We can do this by adding more introductory panels about Buddhism in general and the practice of Buddhism in Chambal with a focus on Dom Zheom. The Tram museum is basically a religious arts museum. However, nowhere in the galleries can we see test panels with introduction to Buddhism and Hinduism. We also need to add more group labels to each group of objects and rewrite some objects label so that the visitor can understand the religious meanings, the functions, and the excavation context of these Buddhist sculptures. And not less important, visitor devices should be used to give the visitor different means of interpretation. Like we can use a such device like flipbooks, AV projectors with film screenings, free stands with touch screen or handheld device, or at least black and white rings. And I would like to show some Buddhist art galleries which offer some interpretive panels and digital devices that the Tram museum can follow. This is an exhibition titled It Brings of the Buddhas. Buddhists are in the National Palace Museum collection. And from the very beginning there is an introductory panel to introduce Buddhism before the visitor continue to other galleries. All this exhibition, Ancient Religions at the ACM Museum, there is also an introductory panel to talk about the arrival of Buddhism and Hinduism in Southeast Asia. Or at the V&A Museum in London, test rooms are used to help visitors understand more about Buddhist symbols before they go around the galleries to see the sculptures on view. Or this photo, this is the gateway to Himalayan art at the Rubin Museum of Art in New York. This introduction, I mean this introduction section, show a large multimedia map to highlight the regions of Himalayan cultural sphere. Or back to the V&A, the Buddhism, this room, we can see the gallery provides interpretive panels and labels in addition to movable rings. And visitors can take the rings around the galleries while contemplating the sculptures. Yep, so I already mentioned the missing of some arches in the Dong Yun Gallery and they're whereabouts at overseas museum today. So the question is, is this possible for these arches to be returned to the Charm Museum so that the gallery could be more contextualized and visitors could gain a more coherent understanding of the Buddhist art of Charm Ba. Currently, I think there is little chance for a institution of Dong Yun Buddhist artifacts from overseas museum. And speaking of this issue, Ms. Aang Veng, the director of the Museum of Royal Antiquities in Horesterie, which also has a Charm Ba gallery of nearly 80 sculptures on display said, because of the obscurity surrounding documentation and provenance of artwork, the outcome for a successful restitution campaign is very uncertain. The legal path to claim restitution of artwork removed under colonial rule are very complicated and expensive. So if attempts for restitution are not successful, I think the display of reproductions as substitute for sculptures now in the collection of overseas museum may be considered, although this is not the best curatorial practice. And also the wishes of repatriation for the mixing arches may be incorporated into test panels within the gallery to openly discuss this museology school challenge. And lastly, a decolonizing approach also means to integrate local communities into curatorial work. For the case of the Dong Yun gallery, this integration can be done by representing local people into the picture of colonial archaeology because this is still a missing part at the current gallery. And integration can also be done by bringing more local people to the gallery and making them feel connected with these Buddhist artifacts, despite some historical rupture. And first, we can help to appreciate a cultural legacy that led for us by the ancient Chiambah people. Yeah, thank you for your listening. Thank you so much for the very comprehensive presentation. Could I now, if you wouldn't mind just pressing stop, stop sharing. Okay. Yeah, thank you. So, yeah, thank you so much, Duyen. And so can I now invite to respond to Duyen's talk? We have Dr. Rie Nakamura. Rie, you can unmute yourself and turn on your camera. Dr. Rie Nakamura is currently a visiting researcher at the Asian Cultures Research Institute in Toyo University, Japan. She received a PhD from the Department of Anthropology at the University of Washington. And she was a program officer at the Toyota Foundation and has taught at the School of International Studies at the University of Malaysia. So Dr. Nakamura, please. Okay, thank you very much. Can you hear me? Am I okay? Yeah, okay. I just wanted to thank to, for organizer to invite me to join this very interesting seminar series. Although I'm not really a museum specialist, actually I'm not really studied about museology or I'm not a curator or anything. But I've been, I've been working on the Cham people in Vietnam and I've been very interested in how they've been represented in museums. So in that regard, I had a lot of opportunity to see Champa artifacts in different museums. And one of the museums is what Ms. Zhuann is is working right now. And I thank you very much, Zhuann, for introducing us very interesting gallery of your museum, which is Don Zun. Don Zun Gallery is not really so well known. Actually it's a very significant period of artifacts, I think, within the Champa history. But comparing to me some, comparing to other Hindu artifacts, it's not that well known. But today I learned such a beautiful statues and also the Don Zun sculpture was really exquisite that I really enjoyed watching these nice pictures and also quite thought provoking your presentation. And what I, I don't think I can cover all the topics that you mentioned. And I'm going to concentrating on something that you said about this contextualization and how this contextualization can decolonize the museum and the museum artifacts. And I think this notion's contextualization of artifacts is really, really significant. And I think your presentation is that is really suggested of how we can decolonize the museums. I visited Champa sculpture museum probably the first time was 1993 or 1994. And at that time I was actually I was horrified to see the museum because this museum was so different from the museum that I visited in Japan and other countries. First of all, artifacts were cemented on the wall. Or you can go around and touch it if there is no guards watching you. So this is really and there aren't so many explanations that it's almost like like plunger artifacts decorating this beautiful museum. This is it's more like decoration of the world top of these. That's what I felt when I looking at the museums. So but contextualizing all these artifacts, the significance of artistic significance and also historical significance. I think it is one step to decolonize and to look at the artifacts, not just the things that have been like dragged from somewhere as what trophies. And I think that's the way to sort of kind of decolonize the artifacts in the museums. And this besides this, I found it this Champa, I'm sorry, Champa sculpture museum in Danang. It's been very innovative of doing some decolonization things. I don't know if they are doing it purposely or un-purposely, but I found it it's quite interesting to see this museum's development. They went through the various renovations since 1936. They did in 2002, 2009, and the major renovations being done in 2016 and 2017. And Champa is a group which we believe that they are the people who are like a majority majority group in in so-called Champa kingdoms. And as you can see that in a political geopolitical map right now in Southeast Asia, there is no Champa because it was vanished due to the Southern expansion of the Vietnamese. And that's the fact. But then this is really sort of in order to create the national discourses saying that they disappeared because of the Southern expansion of the Vietnamese people is not really quite fit into the national discourses. So usually what happened if you go to the national museums, they don't talk about these things. And they do showing the Champa art in National Museum in Hoh Chimich City, but then they never really discussed historical background. And also the important things that they never really discussed the connection between Champa, which is the political entity which is vanished a long time ago, and the people who remained within in the territory of Vietnam nowadays in the nation state as ethnic minority people. So these kind of connections triggered the sort of the past memories which everybody wanted to forget in order to create national discourses that it's kind of taboo to see the Champa and Champa at the same time. However, this Champa sculpture museum did this sort of tabooed exhibitions. Now new renovated exhibition in Champa sculpture museums, they start showing the ethnic materials of Champ people on the second floors. And that really indicates that actually the people who did initiate it, these civilizations did exist and that's how they were living. So these connections to me, it's kind of astonishing to see. And also this museum had an exhibition of a Champ artist called Dan Nantou and he does sculptures and also the oil paintings or he does, he's a painter and also sculptor. And they had an exhibition of his works and his work is quite unique in a way that he described who they are with their own sort of religious vocabularies. There is a very significant kind of in and young kind of concepts that Champa people have. And usually his painting and his artworks is based on this in and young notions. And it's really showing that how Champ people perceive the society, how Champ people perceive the history, it's really representing their view. And this museum had his works exhibition. I thought this was extraordinary. So it's quite interesting that Champ sculpture museums kind of creating like an arena of the counter discourses or antithesis and providing multiple view to I'm not saying that which one is good and which is one was bad, but it's kind of contestations, you know, there is a different views, plural views, plural like perspectives. And this museum can host exhibition like this. I think it is quite interesting. And going back to Zouen's argument of the Donsun gallery, how to decolonize this gallery, I think it's already museums well done to decolonize this exhibition by contextualized and also even presented that how it's been discovered and how the colonial people treated this artifacts and how they're treating this artifacts. And that's also one attempt to showing that attempt to decolonize the galleries. And I do agree with her that contextualization is a very significant method to decolonize the artifacts. And I think she can or she or this museum can do various kinds of things to decolonize this art galleries by bringing more historical to putting this galleries within more historical point of view. For instance, Donsun galleries is a really unique Mahayana Buddhist galleries and Mahayana Buddhists somehow in Southeast Asia very short left like have some sort of relationship with Borobudal and Indonesia, for instance, or some people might argue that it's some influences of Chola dynasty. And if we see this gallery is from the like more dynamic historical movement, I think it can contribute to the decolonization of the galleries. And I think you can do so many different kind of things. It can be a more like experimental things to decolonize the artifacts. And I'm very much looking forward to see what is going to happen in the galleries. So I think that's all I wanted to say. Well, thank you very much for the interesting presentations. I guess what we can do is well, do you have any responses directly to what Rie has just said? Okay, let me check. Yeah, personally, I agree with Rie in one point that actually, currently, we need to have more exhibitions that features the life or the artist of contemporary charm people, because there is something like a disconnection between the past and the present. And in recent year, we already added a gallery on the second floor. This is about the cultural life of the contemporary charm people. And with this exhibition, our former director hopes to provide visitors with more information or to provide a continuation for the sculptures. So it's like a move from sculpture to the current life of the the charm people in Vietnam. And we hope that in the future, we will have more exhibition like this featuring the charm people and their artist. Yeah, and how to say, when we talk about decolonisation, we, I mean, this term, when I applied to the charm museum, what I want to emphasize is that the charm museum is rebuilt during the colonial period. And we have employed a formalist approach in the curation in our curation, yeah, in our curational work. Yeah, but now we are going to turn this we are going to recontextualize not only the charm Buddhist gallery, but also other galleries to provide visitors with more information on the objects on view. Yeah, as I already say, curating an exhibition is not only about installing the objects, but also about providing information on the objects that are installed. So it's our effort to recontextualize the Dong Yun gallery and also other galleries of the charm museum by adding more means of interpretation and add with more and offer more devices, especially new system devices for the visitor in the coming years, I hope. Thank you, Duyen. Yeah, it seems like from both of from from your talk and from Reyes' response that sort of contextualizing the display a bit more in terms, especially plugging it into the broader Buddhist networks that these sculptures, these temples were part of, it's very important in kind of decolonizing them. So you don't just see them as as state objects, but you know, as kind of vital parts of these networks that were in Southeast Asia at the time. And it's great to, I mean, are you so is the museum making some, it's great to hear that the museum is thinking of employing these strategies to contextualize the material. But I just wanted to pick up on something that Duyen, you mentioned you had at the talking about at the end of your presentation and Reyes, you kind of alluded to with the contemporary charm artists being able to give a very useful perspective. Duyen, you mentioned that in one of the decolonial strategies would be to get local communities a bit more involved. And I guess not just contemporary artists, but also people who live, yeah, as Reyes said, people who live in the areas where the museum is and where all this art was found. Is there anything that you know you're doing or do you need suggestions on how these local communities can be brought in better to interact with the museum and the displays? So about the artist, we just talked about the contemporary charm artist. And what we already mentioned is about exhibitions of the artworks met by the contemporary charm people. Yep. So I see one question, this is about involving local people. And actually, to understand the Donbue Buddhist art is not easy. And as I already mentioned in my lecture, there is a disruption, we call a rupture between the past and present. The current, I mean, the kind of Buddhist, the kind of Buddhism that we practice today may be a little different from the kind of Buddhism practiced by the ancient charm people in the old days. So in this case, it's not easy to invite the contemporary charm people into our curatorial work. Yeah. So I just mean that we can decolonize by providing more interpretation means to understand this kind of Buddhism in the past. But we should offer more means of interpretation for the current visitor so that they understand more about the past. But we are not sure that the contemporary people can understand, totally understand the true nature of this kind of Buddhism in the past. Yeah. So I see one question is you mentioned involving local people. Can you talk about how and if any the gallery is involving local Buddhist monastery, temples, monks or nuns and how they view the museum? Yeah. So currently, we I think we haven't invited any Buddhist monks or nuns or we we haven't worked with any Buddhist, I mean with any people working at the Buddhist monastery to work or to cooperate with the curator at the charm museum. But I think in the future, if we want to better our Buddhist gallery, we have to work with others from the Buddhist monastery, at least for the for the writing of the panel best about the introduction of Buddhism at this gallery. Yeah. How Buddhism came to Southeast Asia or how Buddhism came to Champa back to those years? Yeah. Okay. Great. Well, you know, perhaps we can take some more questions from the audience as well. There's a question from Mr. Adam Krishna Tan. I think there's more for Dhuyan asking about the iconography of the seated Buddha. I guess there's a large Buddha that you were presenting earlier. Could you comment further about the sculpture and the iconography? Yes. I'm happy to address this question. Actually, this Buddha we call the giant Buddha or the colossal city Buddha. And this Buddha will fall at the side without the head. And the bodies only the body we meant. So the Buddha, how to say, assisting with the legs in parallel. And when we look at the robes that the Buddha wear, the sick pink smolder or the hands getcher, we can find some similarities with the Buddha in Chinese Buddhist art tradition, especially those from the Tang dynasty. And I have written a very long essay on this Buddha. You can see the catalogue vibrancy in stone in which we talk about this Buddha. And we show some how to say artistic connection between this Buddha with the Buddhist tradition in China, back to the eight or nine centuries. And so far about the identity of this Buddha. This is also a controversial issue. Yes, some identify this Buddha at the Buddha Sakyambuni, but the others argue that this Buddha may be a matriarch Buddha. Rean, do you have something to add to that? About the Buddha's head? No. Did you remember it from when you visited the museum? Yes, I think I saw the head that's first time, but then there is no head when I visited recently, I think. Probably you visited the museum after, I think after 2009, because in 2009 we reopened the gallery and at that time the head was taken from the body of the Buddha. And it's remained like that for a few years. And I can't remember exactly because during this year, I studied in the United States and then I went to London to do my PhD. So I didn't know when the the reproduced heads were added to this Ajayan Buddha, as you see today. Yeah, but it just happened recently, I mean in recent years. Okay, well, let's take another audience question from Sujata. She asks, you know, she says, thank you for sharing a research about this fascinating topic, about creating sacred objects. She's wondering how the museum overseas are displaying the missing objects that you you talk about. Do they address any of the issues of acquisition and absence that you found? How to say, actually, during the years living abroad, I traveled to some museums in the United States and in Europe, which have the collection of Chamba sculptures. And I haven't seen any overseas museum openly discuss the issue of restitution. Yeah, so today we know that there are many missing objects in the galleries at the Charm Museum. I mean, not only the Dong Yun Gallery, but the other galleries as well. And in recent years, restitution is a very hot topic. Yeah, this is discussed widely. Yeah. And I hope that in the future overseas museum also think about this issue and have a conversation with the Charm Museum on the return of some charm sculptures if possible. Thank you, Duyen. Rie, I wonder if you have a perspective on this because you've written a lot about, you've written about Charm, representing Charm in Vietnamese museums, but do you have any thoughts on how Charm and Chamba is represented in overseas museums, like what Duyen has mentioned, you know, overseas museums which have collections of Charm sculpture? Actually, unfortunately, I don't think I ever seen any Charm sculpture or some things outside of Vietnam, I don't think. But there is this repatriation of the artifacts. I think it is kind of tricky. It's very complicated things because, again, for Charm, they might say that why Vietnam will take it back. I mean, country of Vietnam, which means that there are so many religious sites, for instance, it's been like, they don't have control over anymore. For instance, once they were assigned as a national monument or a historical heritage, and then it's been controlled under the Ministry of whatever, like the Ministry of Culture or Ministry of Education, and then they will lose the control over the site. For instance, like there is a one, there is a towers, and I should not say towers, but the Hindu temples that people will do, the Charm people do a ceremony four times in a year, and they only open like four times in a year, and the rest of the year, it was closed. But because the Ministry of Culture, Ministry of Tourists wanted to show that, you know, show that inside of the temple for the tourists, now it's open 365 days. And there's so many different things that's coming in, every time I went and see that it's like a Vietnamization of the Charm culture, and they did not know, say, they could not do anything. But this is their historic, actually, this is their religious site, but they don't have any control over. So they have different kind of feeling toward artifacts, even though these are historical things, because they, now there are some sort of doubled colonization from the point of view of Charm. And how they're going to deal with this sort of double colonialism might be a very big challenge for the Museum of Champa Sculpture. And actually, I think that they were really doing good job in order to cope with this double colonization of the Charm people. I think they were really doing innovative things that I'm very much looking forward to see what kind of things that they're going to do in the future. Thanks very much. That's a really good point. I mean, I think in a lot of formerly colonized countries in Southeast Asia and all over the world, facing the same issue where colonial museums, when they become kind of national museums, then the narratives kind of change from colonial narratives, and then they start being used to serve the state. And then sometimes people, some people also kind of fall through the cracks in the way of, as you say. Do you have a response to that and what the Charm Museum is doing? You're sorry, I were a little accidentally minded in the last few minutes because I just read over some questions in the Q&A. Can you remind me again? Yeah, just wondering if you have any comments on what Rie has shared on the kind of tensions between with tourism and at Charm sites. I mean, how the Charm Museum is really shaping the narrative about Charm art today. It's not easy to answer this question, yeah, to be honest. Yeah, so how to rewrite the narrative so far? Because, you know, currently the Charm Museum is, Islam is the museum of Charm sculpture, and we focus more on art, on the art of exactly the religious art of the ancient Charm by people. Yeah, and we are going to rewrite the narrative gradually. I say gradually, step by step. And as I already mentioned a few minutes ago, our former director decided to add the exhibition of contemporary Charm people. Yeah, and this exhibition, this gallery on the second floor is a continuation of the sculptural galleries in the ground floor. Yeah, and in this way, we are going to show the visitor the present day life of the Charm people. Yeah, but it's not easy to document the life of the ancient Charm people in the past. Yeah, so imagine the Charm Museum today have two sections. One is for sculpture of the past, and one for the life, the cultural, the daily life of the Charm people in the present. And I think in this way, we are going to rewrite not totally, not exactly, but we are going to offer more, how to say, to offer a window into the life of the Charm people. Yeah. Okay, thanks. Thanks, Durin. Let's take another question from the audience perhaps. I see a question by. And also I wanted to add one more point. So I talk about the involvement or the participation of local communities. So in my opinion, I think like in the future, I would like, actually, we already did that, we already did that when we opened the exhibition on the contemporary Charm people, we already invited many Charms people from Ninh Thong and Vinh Thong province. We invite many scholars to work with museum curator in preparation for this gallery. And I think in the future, we should maintain this relationship with the Charm people in other provinces in our work. That sounds really interesting. And I look forward to seeing more of that. So actually along those lines, there's a question by Paretha Konanta-Kul on how do Charm community members, and I guess also I would expand that to say like how do visitors to the museum, you know, any of the museum visitors to the museum think of the headless Buddha images, you know, if they are Buddhists, do they feel like it's their duty to keep religious images in perfect condition or do they think of images as archaeological artifacts and not religious objects and you know, because obviously in Vietnam, there are a lot of Buddhist practitioners. Have you had any feedback from visitors about that? Which question can you, can you mention the name of the people? I mean the question by Paretha Konanta-Kul. Yeah, I see. Actually today, how to say, we don't have any evaluation section at the Charm Museum, certainly. Yeah. Is it something that we should do, yeah, to know how visitors think or how they feel about the gallery? So we still don't know how our visitors think about the headless Buddha images, yeah, the headless Buddha images. And yeah, so how to say, what we say it just about, it just from the viewpoint of curators, not from the visitor. Yeah, so I'm sorry to answer this question that we still don't know how Charm community members think of headless Buddha images. Yeah, but in the future, I mean, in respect to the coloniser museum, we should have this kind of evaluation, how to say, I mean, this kind of evaluation section or we should have a way to know the feedback from our visitor. Great, yeah, I definitely think audience feedback also is a way to kind of, to further decolonize the museum as well to get feedback from what they have to think, to say about the displays. So, you know, I have some questions, you know, talking about the kind of complex situation that the Charm Cultural Museum has to position itself in, I'm just kind of going to take maybe J last question. But I think you kind of addressed this already, and the question is, you know, does the museum whole workshop of the local community and then ask them for their thoughts on the rupture between all the Champa and contemporary Champa, you know, you've talked about, you know, in the exhibition bringing in local communities and, you know, kind of developing that contemporary Charm Gallery, right? Did you have anything further to add to that? What you said? Yeah, actually, we had to say we don't have any kind of workshops. But I already mentioned a few years ago when we opened the exhibition about the contemporary Charm people, we did invite some scholars, Charm scholars from Ninh Thuong and Binh Thuong, to work with museum staff in preparation for this gallery. But we hope that in the future we can work more with the local communities from the provinces. Definitely, that would be really interesting. So, Rie, you kind of dropped off for a second, but you're still there. So, we're coming to the last thing. Sorry. Yeah, great. Great to have you back. Yeah, we're coming to the last 10 minutes of this program. Just wondering if, yeah, Rie, did you have any other comments or any other questions you wanted to post at the end that we can take so far? Since she's talking about the involvement of the Charm people, I just wanted to mention about these two local museums organized by actually Charm communities. One is in Binh Thuong and one is in Ninh Thuong. And Ninh Thuong is a little bit more, I should not say scientifically done, but it has a very long history and it's been like really renovated and give lots of thoughts and some FAO scholars also involved in. So, it's been kind of nicely organized. But the one in Ninh Thuong, sorry, Binh Thuong province, the Charm Cultural Center, I think this museum is quite something. Actually, when I visited, I was really shocked because it was a mess. In terms of like chronological order and everything is like so mismatched that I did not know what they're trying to do with this museum. So, there is a Dinger and Yoni lying there and some other religious sculptures there and contemporary pictures all over the wall and it looks really chaotic and so eclectic. I thought, what is this? But then I realized that when I went through these exhibition one by one, what they're trying to say is sort of continuation of the past in prison. I mean, I'm sorry, existence of the past in prison and the message that this museum wanted to tell us is a continuation of the existence of the Charm people from the ancient time till now. So, of course, they displayed the last queen of Champa. She passed away a decade ago and I think it's her family still living in Binh Thuong. But this is like really different approach to the artifacts comparing to what Charm sculpture museum is dealing with. And I think it might be interesting for the museum curator in Champa sculpture museum to to kind of communicate with local sort of probably they are not really professionals but how they view the artifacts is quite different and I think it might be very interesting to have some sort of exchange. For instance, like Ninh Thuong province says Charm cultural research center, they have a display of the cow, sculpture of the cow, cow nadin. It's usually sitting in the temple and this nadin is showing us the viewers his butt. He's not showing us his head. This is because usually nadin is facing to the gods that when we approach to the temple, we first think that we're going to see is the the behind of the nadin. So how they display artifacts in Charm cultural research center is really like from the point of view of the local people and then I found it it's quite interesting. So I think it might be useful for curator from the Champa sculpture museum, they are the professionals to like interact with these local museums curators. And I think in this sense, I've local museum is equally quite significant to create like a different viewpoints. Okay, that's all I wanted to say. Thanks so much. Have you have you encountered the curators of the Charm cultural research center and the other local museum that Rie mentioned? Yeah, I visited the the center for Charm studies in several times. And I know the people who work there and actually the Charm Museum invited people from this center many years ago to prepare for the exhibition on the contemporary Charm people at the on the second floor of the Charm Museum today. And today we still maintain the close relationship with those staff. Great. Yeah, looking really looking forward to all the exciting things that it sounds like the Charm Museum, it's called Charm sculpture museum is planning on doing. We just have so three more minutes to this program just do you have any more final thoughts you wanted to share or any final words? No, actually, there are a lot to talk about this museum in every aspect. Yeah, I saw some I saw some questions about the Tara or the Buddha but I think today we don't have enough time to address all the questions. And I hope that you can you can find if you know more you can email me you can email me and I can I can answer the question by email. Yeah, I think that would be easier for me because we don't have much time today, especially though ask me about the sculpture of Tara and those about the the giant Buddha. Yeah, and today I will talk this more about curating and museology. Yeah, so I think those issues related to our history, you can email me and I'm happy to discuss with you. Yeah, I'm talking about the curating of Chamorro. I because our topic today is decolonizing the museum. Yeah, and I work at a museum that's for built during the colonial period. And I see many problems with the current curation of the gallery. So the the Dong Yun gallery that I just present is just one example of the many many. Yeah, I mean this is just one of the many galleries of the Chamorro museum that we need to decolonize. And I do hope that in the future we can work more with the staff from the Music Museum of Asia in Paris, the staff from Eiffel, and also the local people from Ninh Thong and Ninh Thong province or Ang Ya province in Vietnam where a lot of contemporary Cham people are living. And also we we hope to cooperate with the local people living in Da Nang and other to to to have their voice, to have their participation in our curatorial work. Thank you very much Duyen. And actually there's a catalog that people can can buy right of the museum if they're interested in the sculptures. Yeah, actually a few years ago oh I'm getting older I can't remember exactly the year. I think in 2008 or so the Cham Museum worked with so to publish a catalog and the title of the catalog is Vibrancy in Stone. Yeah, Vibrancy in Stone must be from the collection of the Museum of Cham sculpture in Da Nang. And in this catalog we have introduced many in-depth essays about many aspects of Cham bar studies like archaeology, archaeology, yeah and we also introduced more than 100 objects. They are really the masterpieces in our collection. Yeah, so I hope you have a chance to visit the local libraries or we chase a copy and but you can also email me directly and we can openly discuss about archaeological issues related to the sculptures. Okay, yeah so to all our dear members if you have questions about the sculpture of the museum please try to pick up that catalog published by SOAS and the Cham Museum on sculpture called Vibrancy in Stone. And so with that actually it's 8.30 p.m. and that kind of brings us to a conclusion. Please join me in well I'd just like to thank our speakers Duyen Nguyen and Dr. Rie Nakamura. Thank you so much for joining us today. And also you know we'd like to thank you all all our audience members for your time in the picture today. Once again just want to say that that we have two more webinars in the SOAS ACM decolonizing curating in the Museum in Southeast Asia series one next Thursday and the other on the 11th of November that's our last one. So you can sign up for that on the website as well. So with that I would just like to say thanks again to everyone and everyone have a good piece of good evening. Thank you. Thank you.