The Extending Heritage project was part of the RMIT School of Art Future Ancestors Global Art Intensive in Hanoi 27 Nov – 8 Dec 2023, funded by the New Colombo Plan and Enabling Capability Platform (Design and Creative Practice). The intensive brought together staff and students from RMIT Australia and RMIT Vietnam to work together with three industry partners based in Hanoi for two weeks and coincided with the Vietnam Festival of Creativity and Design.
For this project, we partnered with Hanoi Ad Hoc, a multiannual interdisciplinary research framework and design program initiated by Architect Mai Hung Trung. Working with RMIT Hanoi-based spatial design students and a Melbourne student from the Digital Design program, the project folded in mentors from MAGI (Quynh Nhu Bui), CODE (Lucian Lovell), along RMIT VN staff Paul-Antoine Lucas (architect/spatial designer), Ondris Pui (3D technology specialist) and Dr Alison Bennett, associate dean of photography and co-lead of the IF Lab.
In 2023, Hanoi Ad Hoc are working on the theme of ‘dwelling in flux’ to consider adaptive use of domestic housing typologies. “Despite the narrative of historic ruptures in the making of the city, Hanoi maintains continuity between its cultural heritage and today’s built-environment through a long-standing practice of people modifying, repurposing, and building their own homes.” https://www.hanoiadhoc.com/adhoc-2-0-introduction
We proposed to explore the creative potential of expanded photography techniques such as photogrammetry to investigate and speculate about the cultural practice of ‘dwelling in flux’ in the context of Hanoi built environment.
Going into the project, we were guided by the following research questions: Could creative speculative outcomes utilising expanded imaging applications such as photogrammetry and webXR contribute usefully to extended understandings and experience of heritage? Given the complex multilayer architecture of Hanoi, could these outcomes contribute to a nuanced understanding of domestic space?
Reporting on a presentation at the Vietnam Festival of Creativity and Design, 2 Dec, Ngoc Hoang reported that “Using photography as the medium, RMIT Associate Dean of Photography Dr Alison Bennett took audiences in Hanoi through the concept of extending heritage. What does it mean to make a digital ‘copy’? Does it extend and share the value of the artefact? Does it make it more vulnerable?” the RMIT academic and photographer asked. Dr Bennett first visited Hanoi in 1993 and came back to the city thirty years later on a study trip with students from RMIT Australia. Their photographic journey through Hanoi has captured the distinctive array of the city’s architecture, from French colonial villas to 1980s collective housing and tube houses – and how they are constantly adapting to the times.
“It’s important to understand that every choice that we make is time travel – it affects the future. And we cannot separate the cultural, the technological, and the ecological. These things are deeply interconnected when we think of heritage”, Dr Bennett said. https://www.rmit.edu.vn/news/all-news/2023/dec/shaping-future-cultural-and-societal-heritage
This project contributes to ongoing international inquiry in the realms of expanded photography, the practical and theoretical implications of the digital twin and representation, heritage interpretation, and the potential contribution of creative responses within this context.
work in progress
