‘Pure Water’: Perspectives on Agent Orange and Ecological Violence

Pure Water is an exhibition and roundtable program hosted by the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs on 12–13 November 2026. It marks 65 years since the United States began spraying Agent Orange and other herbicides in Vietnam in 1961, during the Second Indochina War. Contaminated with dioxin, Agent Orange left behind lasting environmental and health consequences, affecting not only exposed communities in Vietnam but also Australian veterans and the Vietnamese diaspora in Australia. Featuring an installation by Vietnamese Australian artist James Nguyen, the program examines Vietnamese perspectives on Agent Orange and places them in dialogue with broader questions about the relationship between ecology and violence.


Agenda
Thursday 12 November 2026

• 10–11am: Coffee and tea with the artist (Atrium)

• 4:30–5pm: Reception (Atrium)

• 5–5:30pm: Official opening of the exhibition (Atrium)

• 5:30–7pm: Roundtable 1: Vietnamese Perspectives on Agent Orange and the Second Indochina War (Lecture Theatre 1)

Friday 13 November 2026

• 11–11:30am: Morning tea

• 11:30am–1pm: Roundtable 2: Perspectives on Ecological Violence: Exploitation, Ecocide and Environmentalism (Lecture Theatre 1)

• 4pm: Exhibition closes
  

Speakers

Artist: Dr James Nguyen (Australian-Vietnamese Artist, Melbourne) was born in Bảo Lộc, Việt Nam in 1982. He lives, makes and writes in Murrumbeena, Naarm. James often works with his family and friends to find fleeting moments of intimacy, play, and poetic justice. Leaning on the tropes of cinema, the false exceptionalism of diaspora and broken languages, Nguyen creates new encounters that could be described as incisive, irreverent and broadly irrelevant.

He has presented work and projects at institutions including the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, ACCA, the Sydney Opera House; and received the UNSW Dean’s Award for his PhD and the ABC Top5 Researcher for the Art2.

Dr Ngoc Lan Tran completed her PhD at the Department of Asian Studies. Her thesis, 'Un/forgetting Agent Orange: Towards a Reimagining of Vietnamese Forests', examines the legacies of chemical warfare in the aftermath of the Vietnam War using postmaterial feminist theories and diffractive methodologies. Her work focuses on the politics of Agent Orange and the presence of spirituality and reverence for life and nature in the life stories of Vietnamese victims.

University of Adelaide

Dung Phan is a PhD Candidate in International Relations at the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, The Australian National University. His PhD project examines Vietnamese agency in the transnational memory politics of Agent Orange/dioxin.

Additional contributors will include speakers from ANU with expertise in environmental contamination, water resources, war legacies, ecological justice, or related themes may be invited.


Additional information:
Registration is required for this event. If you require accessibility accommodations or a visitor Personal Emergency Evacuation Plan please email bell.marketing@anu.edu.au. Accessible parking spaces are available around campus should you require them.

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