Kim-Trang has an eye for blindness

Author: Melissa Marshall

Tran Kim-Trang, professor of Art and Media Studies at Scripps College in California, emigrated from Vietnam to the United States in 1975. She received her MFA from the California Institute of the Arts in 1993. Her video works have been exhibited internationally and have been screened at prestigious museum galleries, including the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Biennial. This evening, Tran will be screening three of her seven completed tapes from her series "The Blindness Theory": "Ocularis: Eye Surrogates," "Ekleipsis" and "Alexia: Metaphor and Word-Blindness." Each short deals with a different type of blindness and obscured perception. Staff writer Melissa Marshall had the opportunity to speak with Tran about her work and future aspiriations.



The Middlebury Campus: How did you get involved in film?

Tran Kim-Trang: It started in my undergrad years at The University of Idaho. I transferred there for art, video art in particular. After that I moved out to California with my mom and looked into graduate schools there, deciding on the California Institute of the Arts. In 1992 I made my first film- the Introduction to the Blindness Theory.



The Campus: Could you explain a little bit about your work?

TKT: The "Introduction to The Blindness Theory" is an outline about what's to come. The first part deals with cosmetic surgery, especially regarding Asians who have eye-lid surgery because it's like trying to erase one's identity. The next one is focused on sexuality - not only the physical condition of becoming blind in the advanced stages of AIDS, but also the government's blindness towards women who have AIDS. The third one is about video surveillance - what we're able to see and not see and if the truth is complete just through visual information. The fourth tape deals with hysterical blindness in a tribe of Cambodians in Long Beach, California, while the fifth deals with language especially in terms of metaphors. The sixth video examines physical alexia - a condition where people who have suffered a stroke lose the ability to perceive language. The very last one is more of a conventional documentary about a blind guitar player. My work is an investigation of physical and metaphorical blindness.



The Campus: Are you currently working on any productions?

TKT: Right now I'm working on the epilogue, the eigth tape to the series of "The Blindness Theory". I'm also working on a feature narrative script of my mother titled "Call me Sugar."



The Campus: What inspires you to make your films?

TKT: Ideally, I'm trying to reach everyone, but more specifically I'm trying to bridge the gap between the art world and the world of political activism. I find, in the art world, that there are not a lot of politics discussed while in the political scene there is very little understanding about aesthetics.