In her acclaimed three-channel video installation Night Sutra, premiered at the Busan Biennale 2024, artist Han Mengyun intertwines tales of genocide, exile, healing, and rebellion with reflections on transcultural and intergenerational womanhood, motherhood, postpartum depression, and the often-overlooked misogyny within Buddhist traditions through recorded episodes of her Lacanian psychoanalytic sessions. Emulating the format of Buddhist sutras, the film integrates woodblock-printed motifs while stitching and binding a variety of narrative forms. The moving image shifts between Buddhist verses, oral testimonies from Khmer Rouge survivors, Cambodian classical dance, and the artist’s performances, where the distinct voices of the female subjects are centralised.
The event will include a special screening of Night Sutra, followed by Han’s conversation with Professor Ashley Thompson, Hiram W. Woodward Chair in Southeast Asian Art at SOAS. The discussion will explore shared themes in their research and practice, including gender and sexuality in transcultural Buddhism, psychoanalysis as a device to deconstruct the feminine psyche, and the interplay of trauma and memory — from the Cambodian genocide to the Cultural Revolution in China.
Organised by Dr Sophie Guo, associate lecturer at The Courtauld, as part of the Trans-Asias Research Cluster.
Speakers
Han Mengyun (b. 1989 in Wuhan, raised in Shenzhen, China) is a London-based interdisciplinary and multimedia artist, comparatist, filmmaker, poet, and mother. She holds a BA in Studio Art from Bard College and studied Sanskrit at Kyoto University before completing her MFA at the University of Oxford, focusing on Classical Indology and Indian aesthetic theories. Her practice is metaphorically divided between ‘day’ and ‘night,’ exploring a wide range of themes from the decolonisation of Eurasian transcultural hybridizations to personal experiences as a woman and mother. Her work has been presented at Busan Biennale, South Korea (2024); Zhi Art Museum, China (2024); UCCA Edge, Shanghai (2023); Yuz Museum, Shanghai (2023); Diriyah Biennale, Saudi Arabia (2021); Today Art Museum, Beijing (2013) etc. Han’s work has been widely covered by international media, including ArtReview, The Art Newspaper, ArtAsiaPacific, Financial Times, and ArtForum. Find out more at https://www.mengyunhan.com/.
Professor Ashley Thompson is a specialist in Southeast Asian Art Histories, with particular expertise on Cambodia. Her research is informed by deconstruction and psychoanalysis, and revolves around questions of memory, political and cultural transition, sexual difference and subjectivity, approached through decolonising critical perspectives. Objects of analysis include Hindu and Buddhist sculpture, cult or ritual practices and texts, as well as other forms of fine and performing arts. Her authored books include Engendering the Buddhist State: Territory, Sovereignty and Sexual Difference in the Inventions of Angkor (2016), Calling the Souls: A Khmer Ritual Text (2005), Dance in Cambodia (1999), and Angkor, a Manual for the Past, Present, and the Future (1995).
