The joint inauguration of the premises to house the EFEO Hanoi Center's delegation in South Vietnam and the AFD's representation in Ho Chi Minh City is taking place on February 25 and 26.

On February 25, a reception is being organized in the premises of the villa at 113 Hai Ba Trung, in the presence of the French Ambassador to Vietnam, the political officials of the People's Committee in  Ho Chi Minh City, the AFD's director in Vietnam, and the EFEO's Director of Studies. On this occasion an exhibition made up of some thirty panels shows the activities of both the EFEO (Textes et Terrain. Remise en perspective de 20 ans d'activités de l'EFEO au Vietnam [Texts and Terrain. An Overview of 20 years of EFEO Activities in Vietnam]) and the AFD (AFD: Objectif développement [AFD: Development Objectives]). This exhibition will highlight the cooperative efforts, both scholarly and operational, that unite these two institutions.

On February 26 a second exhibition, titled Imagerie populaire du Vietnam-triptyque [Popular imagery of Vietnam-triptych], is opening at the media library of the IDECAF (Institut d'échanges culturels avec la France [Institute for Cultural Exchanges with France]). In some fifteen panels, this exhibition presents selected extracts from, on the one hand, the two great collections put together during the first half of the 20th century in the northern part of the country (the Henri Oger collection and the Maurice Durand collection), and, on the other, an original illustrated manuscript of the Luc Vân Tiên, the epic poem of the South, preserved at the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres. This manuscript is in the process of being digitized and published by the delegation from the South of Vietnam. The exhibition opening offers the opportunity for an accompanying conference dedicated to popular imagery in Viêt Nam, with addresses by four contributors: Professor Phan Huy Lê (President of the Association of Historians of Vietnam and corresponding member of the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres, Paris); Olivier Tessier (on Henri Oger's Encyclopedia of Annamite technologies); Philippe Papin (on Maurice Durand and popular imagery); and Pascal Bourdeaux (on the manuscript of the Luc Vân Tiên and the digitization-publication project). READ MORE