Vườn Lài- a wonderland: photos as documentation

from 12 December 2019 until 5th Janurary 2020, Vincent Tran and Nguyễn Quốc Thành organized Vietnamese queer film screening, workshops and talks called Vườn lài - a wonderland at Quan Cam, 60s Kham Thien, Tho Quan, Hanoi, most of the time but sometimes films were screening at TPD. It was to honor Vườn a place to show films in Saigon but these films were old and boring. Audience came over not for films but to find sex partners. Interesting, the cinema knew the phenomonon but they kept their eyes blind and their ears shut as thanks to these audience, the cinema continue to survive until a big coporation bought it and turned it into a shopping mall. these are posters of Vườn Lài- a wonderland:

and its crazy program

M soft scuptures were displaced in this place the whole time together with creations by participants and some friends of mine who came to my house and created things with me.

although it looked less crowded as it was in my house :)

I had been involved as one moderator after we screen Love man Love woman: a tale of master Đức by Nguyễn Trinh Thi. I invited three young queer mediums to participate and we talked a lot about the role of the religion (Đạo Mẫu, or the Religion of worshiping mothers and goddeses) in the life of young queer people and whether queer people found this religion a place for them to escape from the discrimination of people who expressed themsleves differently from gender norms or heteronomativity. The conversation was interesting as it helped us to understand the double burden the young queer experience. it seems the queered gender expression was more acceptable but the homosexuality was not quite so. Many even had to get married and had children, esp sons to maintain their temples.