Thứ Sáu, 30 tháng 1, 2009

Canberra ABC TV 29-1-2009

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/local/news/general/journeys-that-shaped-australia/1420430.aspx

Australia's history, dating back to before European settlement, contains many journeys to and from the country that have shaped society.

The courageous trips of many migrants and travellers are the focus of the National Museum's newest permanent gallery, Australian Journeys. Curator Kirsten Wehner helped select the stories and the 750 objects on display.

''The gallery shows the way in which Australia has been shaped by global events and has shaped global events,'' she said.

One story is of a Vietnamese prisoner of war who invented a unique musical instrument to keep him sane in the camp. Minh Tam Nguyen's instrument, which he said sounded like a cross between a piano, xylophone and harp, is on display in the museum's new gallery.

He made the dan tre while in a prisoner of war camp for six years after he was captured by the Vietcong while fighting for the South Vietnamese Army. The instrument, which plays Western and Vietnamese music, was left behind when Mr Nguyen was released.

After he fled Vietnam with his son, he made another dan tre at a refugee camp and brought it to Australia in 1981. ''I needed it [the instrument] because there was nothing else to free our minds,'' Mr Nguyen said. He played for the 4500 other prisoners.

The object is among many others that tell stories like voyages from Europeans looking for tea and spices, and tales of gold rushes and Rolf Harris's wobble board.

Arts Minister Peter Garrett officially opened the Australian Journeys gallery last night. ''Of particular interest is the incredible case at the end of the gallery which focuses on the successful emergence of Aboriginal Australian art on to the world stage,'' he said.

The exhibition will remain in the museum for about seven years.

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National Museum 29-01-2009

National Museum opens new culture gallery

Posted Thu Jan 29, 2009 6:33pm AEDT
Updated Thu Jan 29, 2009 7:48pm AEDT

The new National Museum gallery Australian Journeys

Curator Kirsten Wehner says they wanted to develop a gallery that picked up on the transnational history of Australia. (ABC News)

A new permanent gallery has opened at the National Museum to showcase some of its prize pieces.

Australian Journeys is the first new permanent exhibition to be built since the museum opened in 2001 and includes 750 objects which tell the story of Australia's connection to other cultures around the world.

Curator Kirsten Wehner says it contains significant purchases including a table from the First Fleet, impromptu musical instruments fashioned by Vietnamese refugees and a motion picture camera used by filmmaker Frank Hurley in Antarctica.

"We wanted to develop a gallery that really picked up on the transnational history of Australia," she said.

"[One] that thought about Australia not simply as bounded by the continent, not simply as a nation, but rather looking at the nation's role in a much broader global framework.

"I think the gallery, in fact, makes an argument that part of [Australia's] vibrancy and contemporary strength comes from the fact that it can both be Australian, but also draw on knowledge and skills and experiences from overseas."

JAAMIM June 2008

Minh Tam Nguyen

And The Dan Tre

By Pat Sephton (ACT)

We don’t usually detail the background of new members but Minh’s is unusual to say the least.

During the Vietnam War Minh was a regular officer in the South Vietnam forces until his capture by the enemy a few weeks before the fall of Saigon. He spent the first few years under brutal prison camp conditions working as force labour in the jungles felling trees and bamboo for North Vietnamese works. There was never enough food and a number of his fellow officers died as a consequence of the harsh regime.

One of the sustaining forces for Minh during those difficult years was his love of music, both Vietnamese and Western and over a long period the resolve grew in his mind to construct some kind of musical instrument. He pondered long and constantly on how to design and more importantly how to obtain the materials for such a construction. Whilst working in the jungle he managed to obtain a metre length of stout bamboo which he slipped back to the camp. He hollowed it out, made tuning pins (which went right through the upright piece) and bamboo bridges. For a resonator he retrieved a 20 litre cast-off food can (supplied to the North Vietnamese by China) whilst the 20 odd strings were obtained by stripping the thin wire from inside a length of telephone cable. The great day came when the instrument was “quickened” and he recalls that it sounded somewhere between a piano, zither and a harp. He named it Dan Tre (bamboo musical instrument).

After three years he was transferred to prison concentration camps where they were indoctrinated and “re-educated”, as he put it. He said he would have needed a brain transplant to have swallowed any of this propaganda.

Minh was discharged from prison camp in 1981 and shortly after fled Vietnam by boat for Philippines where he was housed in a refugee camp prior to being granted residence in Australia. He brought part of a replica of the original Dan Tre which he had constructed whist in the Philippines.

Minh has a number of TV and radio performances with his Dan Tre to his credit since residing in Australia but his most vivid and poignant memories will always be of the concerts he gave to his fellow prisoners and their guards at the request of camp commandants, sometimes before audiences of thousands.

The Dan Tre has since been gifted to the National Museum in Canberra where it will be on display later this year.

Welcome to our Association, Minh. We salute you!

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