Thảo Nguyên Phan's Palimpsest Watercolors Overlay Colonial History

Nora A. Taylor's essay in Afterall Journal 47 examines Thảo Nguyên Phan's series 'Voyages de Rhodes' (2014–17), where watercolors are painted directly onto pages of Alexandre de Rhodes' 1653 travelogue. Phan purchased the original book on eBay in 2013. The work juxtaposes contemporary imagery with de Rhodes' observations of 17th-century Vietnam, creating a palimpsest that questions memory, colonialism, and translation. Taylor connects this to Derrida's 'Archive Fever' and Freud's Wunderblock. Phan's earlier works include 'Renal Calculus' (2013), a kidney stone acquired from a Vietnamese man, and 'Mekong Mechanical' (2013), a film about a catfish factory. De Rhodes, a Jesuit missionary, developed the Romanized Vietnamese alphabet (Quốc Ngữ). Phan's drawings often depict children in ambiguous scenes that critique colonial education and inculturation. The essay references Zoe Butt's text for Phan's 2017 solo exhibition 'Poetic Amnesia' at Factory Contemporary Arts Centre in Ho Chi Minh City. Taylor argues Phan's watercolors function as her own Wunderblock, recording a past she did not live.