Trinh T. Minh-Ha: Traveling in the Dark

A handsomely designed artist’s book expanding on Minh-Ha’s film What about China?

The Vietnam-born, Berkeley-based multimedia artist and leading postcolonial theorist Trinh T. Minh-ha (born 1952) is celebrated internationally for her films such as Reassemblage (1982) and Surname Viet Given Name Nam (1985) and influential books such as Lovecidal (2016) and Elsewhere, Within Here (2010). Publications on her art are few, however. This beautifully designed artist’s book was conceived from the script and visuals of Minh-Ha’s film What about China? (2022), in which she films the Chinese countryside and a series of voices share personal experiences, poems and traditional songs, reflecting on China’s past and present. Deftly uniting image and text, Traveling in the Dark expands upon the film’s conceptual scaffolding with writings, poems and aphorisms as well as conversations with other filmmakers and theorists.