Thất bản / Lost stories - Part of the exhibition “𝟨 𝒫𝑀 𝒾𝓃 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝒶𝒻𝓉𝑒𝓇𝓃𝑜𝑜𝓃. 𝒯𝒽𝑒 𝒹𝒶𝓎 𝓌𝒶𝓈 𝓁𝑜𝓃𝑔. 𝒯𝒽𝑒 𝓃𝒾𝑔𝒽𝓉 𝓉𝑜𝑜 𝓌𝒶𝓈 𝓁𝑜𝓃𝑔. 𝐼 𝓌𝒶𝓈 𝒶𝓁𝓌𝒶𝓎𝓈 𝒾𝓃 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝓅𝒶𝓈𝓉:..”. at
@a.farm.saigon
𝓒𝓾𝓻𝓪𝓽𝓸𝓻’𝓼 𝓷𝓸𝓽𝓮:
During a visit to the Southern Vietnamese Women’s Museum, Tâm Đỗ encountered a glass case displaying personal belongings of Vietnamese Heroic Mother and People’s Armed Forces Heroine, Major Trần Quang Mẫn, also affectionately known as Mười Mẫn. Among these possessions was a handwritten autobiographical account detailing how she disguised herself as a man, without her family’s knowledge, to join the revolution as a soldier. Presented simply as a modest stack of A4 pages written in ballpoint pen, the documents offered museum visitors only a limited glimpse into the depth and complexity of her life, beyond her celebrated wartime role. Seeking to liberate Major Trần Quang Mẫn, and essentially, other wartime heroines, from l narratives that reduce them solely to the revolutionary duties, in ‘Lost Stories’, Tâm compiled a series of seven speculative accounts of the Major’s life in Southern Vietnam from 1947 to 1952. These stories foregrounded
details often overlooked as unnecessary or irrelevant within official history:
the vulnerability and quiet struggles of a woman navigating a man’s world, her occasional reminiscences of life as a woman, and serendipitous encounters with Chiêu, a soldier with “an incomplete body” akin to her own, and Thắm, a girl working in a café in Saigon, as well as her complicated romantic feelings. These seven accounts were then transcribed onto the backs of calendar pages by Tâm’s mother, who would normally leave notes for her daughter and husband at home in the same way.
Artworks made during
@a.farm.saigon residency
Special thanks to curator
@linnhlee for advice and support during the realization of this artwork
Alternative lives of Major Trần Quang Mẫn crafted by Tâm Đỗ, Lại Minh Ngọc
@laiminhdde , Thou
@thou_____________.thou , Minh Anh
@____mian
Transcription: Thúy Vân Trần
English translation: Lại Minh Ngọc, Linh Lê
Exhibition technician: Hoàng Vũ
@something.maker 
