THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF A NEW ART EDUCATIONAL COLLABORATION PROJECT BY ZEROSTATION (WWW.ZEROSTATIONVN.ORG) AND ARTIST NGUYEN TRAN UU DAM "7 DAYS IN ENGLISH FOR ART"
Having chance to have traveled in region to work and to meet artist, I am aware of the fact that there seem to be a gap between young Vietnamese artists and young artists of regional countries that have nearly similar cultural, economic conditions to Vietnam such as: Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia or even Myanmar.
This gap is not about the passion of the artists with their carrer. In fact, in a sense, I don't think young Vietnamese artists have less the passion for their career than any young artists in the region. I have met and worked with several Vietnamese young artists who have given up the opportunities to have a comfortable and easy life of a white collar to follow a much more unstable life of an artist. Vietnam Fine Art University in Hanoi has also witnessed many young guys/girls who can spend 10 years of their life of trying doing take entrance examination until they are accepted into the school. (In Vietnam, if you want to study at the Vietnam Fine Art University, you have to take an entrance exam which last for 6 days and 8 hours a day. If you fail, you have to wait till next year to retake it)
The gap I spoke about here is about the effective communication skill in English. That is the ability of an artist to make themselves understood. They should be able to represent him/herself in an easy, and simple way, and to navigate their way easily around new art systems/environments.
There are many reasons that can be attributed for this situation which ranges from the conservative art education system of Vietnam to the isolation of not only art, but Vietnam's political and cultural scene to other regional countries and the world until 90s.
However, one reason which seems simple, but at the same time, very significant for this situation. I think it is the ability to communicate effectively in a foreign language (I want to stress: in English). It is obvious that the ability of using English to communicate of Young Vietnamese artists, in comparison with artists from other countries in region such as Malaysia, Indonesia, and even Myanmar, is worse. Not to mention other countries such as Philippine or Singapore
The fact is that the world now has changed to much, in comparison to the last two decades. The changes are both bad and good, but this is not what I want to discuss here. What I want to say is that it is this change that has opened up many great opportunities for artists in those peripheral countries such as Vietnam to enter to the world on their own feet and avoid the need to pay a fee for any middleman to raise their own voice on the international forum. In the Vietnamese history of art, we have never witnessed such an explosion of information of international artist-in-residency program or opportunities to collaborate with international artists, as what we see right now. The opportunities to live an independent life for a Vietnamese artists has never been easier.
However, to take advantage of this opportunity, young Vietnamese artists must reach three minimum requirements below:
1- Being able to communicate in English
2- Being able to communicate in English
3- Being able to communicate in English
A practicing artist as well, I understand very well the difficulty that the young Vietnamese artist will face when they decide to study a foreign language. It is the characteristic of living an artist life (sleeping late, drink, party, etc) will prevent one from a normal, sometimes boring life of a student who studies a foreign language. Moreover, all normal English courses in our existing English schools now only focus on a general and popular communication skill, but not on specialized skill for artist (vocabulary, terminologies, etc). It is this difficulty that discourage the patience of artists more and more
ZEROSTATION'S SOLUTION
From the facts mentioned above, we have decided to do an experimental English teaching course specialized in Art. These courses will be for artists, or for someone who need to use English to do research on contemporary art (journalists, for example)
These courses are in a project named “ Seven Days in English for Art”, a project we collaborate with artist Nguyen Tran Uu Dam, who will be the main teacher for the course.
Having chance to have traveled in region to work and to meet artist, I am aware of the fact that there seem to be a gap between young Vietnamese artists and young artists of regional countries that have nearly similar cultural, economic conditions to Vietnam such as: Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia or even Myanmar.
This gap is not about the passion of the artists with their carrer. In fact, in a sense, I don't think young Vietnamese artists have less the passion for their career than any young artists in the region. I have met and worked with several Vietnamese young artists who have given up the opportunities to have a comfortable and easy life of a white collar to follow a much more unstable life of an artist. Vietnam Fine Art University in Hanoi has also witnessed many young guys/girls who can spend 10 years of their life of trying doing take entrance examination until they are accepted into the school. (In Vietnam, if you want to study at the Vietnam Fine Art University, you have to take an entrance exam which last for 6 days and 8 hours a day. If you fail, you have to wait till next year to retake it)
The gap I spoke about here is about the effective communication skill in English. That is the ability of an artist to make themselves understood. They should be able to represent him/herself in an easy, and simple way, and to navigate their way easily around new art systems/environments.
There are many reasons that can be attributed for this situation which ranges from the conservative art education system of Vietnam to the isolation of not only art, but Vietnam's political and cultural scene to other regional countries and the world until 90s.
However, one reason which seems simple, but at the same time, very significant for this situation. I think it is the ability to communicate effectively in a foreign language (I want to stress: in English). It is obvious that the ability of using English to communicate of Young Vietnamese artists, in comparison with artists from other countries in region such as Malaysia, Indonesia, and even Myanmar, is worse. Not to mention other countries such as Philippine or Singapore
The fact is that the world now has changed to much, in comparison to the last two decades. The changes are both bad and good, but this is not what I want to discuss here. What I want to say is that it is this change that has opened up many great opportunities for artists in those peripheral countries such as Vietnam to enter to the world on their own feet and avoid the need to pay a fee for any middleman to raise their own voice on the international forum. In the Vietnamese history of art, we have never witnessed such an explosion of information of international artist-in-residency program or opportunities to collaborate with international artists, as what we see right now. The opportunities to live an independent life for a Vietnamese artists has never been easier.
However, to take advantage of this opportunity, young Vietnamese artists must reach three minimum requirements below:
1- Being able to communicate in English
2- Being able to communicate in English
3- Being able to communicate in English
A practicing artist as well, I understand very well the difficulty that the young Vietnamese artist will face when they decide to study a foreign language. It is the characteristic of living an artist life (sleeping late, drink, party, etc) will prevent one from a normal, sometimes boring life of a student who studies a foreign language. Moreover, all normal English courses in our existing English schools now only focus on a general and popular communication skill, but not on specialized skill for artist (vocabulary, terminologies, etc). It is this difficulty that discourage the patience of artists more and more
ZEROSTATION'S SOLUTION
From the facts mentioned above, we have decided to do an experimental English teaching course specialized in Art. These courses will be for artists, or for someone who need to use English to do research on contemporary art (journalists, for example)
These courses are in a project named “ Seven Days in English for Art”, a project we collaborate with artist Nguyen Tran Uu Dam, who will be the main teacher for the course.
This course is focus on skill of communication, understanding terminologies, self-presentation/promotion in English
Artist and curator Nguyen Nhu Huy from ZeroStation will be responsible in explaining/interpreting English aesthetics/artistic/cultural terminologies that have been often used in international contemporary art forum, while artist Nguyen Tran Uu Dam will be responsible in helping participants to speak/listen correctly in terms of grammar/pronunciation in English, etc.
Particularly speaking, this is the English course that does not try to provide ALL English skills as in a normal course. On the contrary, this course only tries to find way to furnish necessary and practical skills for ARTIST in order to help him/her in practical art world situations. For this reason, the course only focus in SOME areas of vocabulary and specialised skill.
The tentative time for the first course will be 09 th -16 th June 2013. Each day we will study for three hours (after 90 minutes we will have a 15 minutes break) from 7:00pm-10:00pm at ZeroStation (quarter 288 Nam Ki Khoi Nghia, ward 8, district 3, HCMC)
For the whole course, each participant must pay 70 USD. And if being selected to the course, all payments must pay in advance one time on the first meeting day.
For best result, we regret to limit the number of participants to 8 persons. We will select participants by application. Anyone who would like to attend this course must send application to us by email at:
huybeo@gmail.com or zerostationvietnam@gmail.com ( the best way is you should try to send to both these email add)
THE CONTENT OF APPLICATION
Application must be written in English. Applicants should let us know where have you studied English before and which level you are at right now? (1- reading and communicating fluently, 2- communicating is ok, reading OK, 3-can only read with a dictionary and need to write to communicate). We also need to know why you would like to participate in the course? You also must let us know your postal mail address, your phone number so that we could contact to you.
We will give priority to young artists, cultural journalists, or the one who are working/studying in creative industry or literature field. The one who are selected in the course will be contacted directly by phone and email. The one who missed this time will not be contacted, but we will keep and prioritize your applications for the future course.
DEADLINE FOR THE APPLICATION IS MORNING SATURDAY 8TH, JUNE 2013
THE PROGRAM
Day #0
09.06 (Sunday)
- First encounter between teacher with participants
- To inform what the participants need to prepare for the next day
- Discussion of what the purpose’s participants in the courses
Day #1
10.06 (Monday)
- Phonetic spelling
- Thinking in English
- Dictation
- Skill
- Learning skills of listening interview clip or artistic clip on youtube, or other art/philosophical websites
Day #2
11.06 (Tuesday)
- Working on the listened clips. To summarize all listening skills, finding words in dictionary, locating relating sources so that participants can be able to undertstand a particular contents
Day #3
12.06 (Wednesday)
- Learning idioms, slang
- Learning how to say correctly the names of 200 nations in the world in English
- Learning how to curse in English
Day #4
13.06 (Thursday)
- Learning of three main religions in the worlds ( Bible, Budhism, Muslim), politics, Ideology, exoticism, orientalism, feminism, post-collonialism, etc.)
Day #5
14.06 (Friday)
- Playing an English vocabulary game
- Learning how to write an email formally and I informally
Day #6
15.06 (Saturday)
- The talks of three invited contemporary art experts who are native English speakers to the courses
- Speakers to be announced
NOTE: Each expert will give talk in 30 mins, and leave 30 mins for questioning and discussing with the participants
Day #7
16.06 (Sunday)
Examination (in three hours)
-Listening
-Writing
-Self-presentation
GENRAL NOTE: In all learning days the participants must note the difficult terminologies so that they can discuss with Nhu Huy, who always is in the class to help them
Artist and curator Nguyen Nhu Huy from ZeroStation will be responsible in explaining/interpreting English aesthetics/artistic/cultural terminologies that have been often used in international contemporary art forum, while artist Nguyen Tran Uu Dam will be responsible in helping participants to speak/listen correctly in terms of grammar/pronunciation in English, etc.
Particularly speaking, this is the English course that does not try to provide ALL English skills as in a normal course. On the contrary, this course only tries to find way to furnish necessary and practical skills for ARTIST in order to help him/her in practical art world situations. For this reason, the course only focus in SOME areas of vocabulary and specialised skill.
The tentative time for the first course will be 09 th -16 th June 2013. Each day we will study for three hours (after 90 minutes we will have a 15 minutes break) from 7:00pm-10:00pm at ZeroStation (quarter 288 Nam Ki Khoi Nghia, ward 8, district 3, HCMC)
For the whole course, each participant must pay 70 USD. And if being selected to the course, all payments must pay in advance one time on the first meeting day.
For best result, we regret to limit the number of participants to 8 persons. We will select participants by application. Anyone who would like to attend this course must send application to us by email at:
huybeo@gmail.com or zerostationvietnam@gmail.com ( the best way is you should try to send to both these email add)
THE CONTENT OF APPLICATION
Application must be written in English. Applicants should let us know where have you studied English before and which level you are at right now? (1- reading and communicating fluently, 2- communicating is ok, reading OK, 3-can only read with a dictionary and need to write to communicate). We also need to know why you would like to participate in the course? You also must let us know your postal mail address, your phone number so that we could contact to you.
We will give priority to young artists, cultural journalists, or the one who are working/studying in creative industry or literature field. The one who are selected in the course will be contacted directly by phone and email. The one who missed this time will not be contacted, but we will keep and prioritize your applications for the future course.
DEADLINE FOR THE APPLICATION IS MORNING SATURDAY 8TH, JUNE 2013
THE PROGRAM
Day #0
09.06 (Sunday)
- First encounter between teacher with participants
- To inform what the participants need to prepare for the next day
- Discussion of what the purpose’s participants in the courses
Day #1
10.06 (Monday)
- Phonetic spelling
- Thinking in English
- Dictation
- Skill
- Learning skills of listening interview clip or artistic clip on youtube, or other art/philosophical websites
Day #2
11.06 (Tuesday)
- Working on the listened clips. To summarize all listening skills, finding words in dictionary, locating relating sources so that participants can be able to undertstand a particular contents
Day #3
12.06 (Wednesday)
- Learning idioms, slang
- Learning how to say correctly the names of 200 nations in the world in English
- Learning how to curse in English
Day #4
13.06 (Thursday)
- Learning of three main religions in the worlds ( Bible, Budhism, Muslim), politics, Ideology, exoticism, orientalism, feminism, post-collonialism, etc.)
Day #5
14.06 (Friday)
- Playing an English vocabulary game
- Learning how to write an email formally and I informally
Day #6
15.06 (Saturday)
- The talks of three invited contemporary art experts who are native English speakers to the courses
- Speakers to be announced
NOTE: Each expert will give talk in 30 mins, and leave 30 mins for questioning and discussing with the participants
Day #7
16.06 (Sunday)
Examination (in three hours)
-Listening
-Writing
-Self-presentation
GENRAL NOTE: In all learning days the participants must note the difficult terminologies so that they can discuss with Nhu Huy, who always is in the class to help them
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