AN ENLIGHTENING LECTURE BY ACCLAIMED FRENCH-VIETNAMESE GRAPHIC NOVELIST AND ILLUSTRATOR, CLÉMENT BALOUP.
🗓️Date: Thursday, 23 October 2025
🕑Time: 5.30-8pm
📍Location: Room 903, Level 9/750 Collins Street, Docklands
Abstract:
The son of a Vietnamese father and a French mother, Baloup is best known for his very personal Mémoires de Viet Kieu (Vietnamese Memories) series, which portrays the experiences of the Vietnamese diaspora offering profound insights into their journeys across various national spaces including Vietnam, France, Kanaky-New Caledonia and, most recently, Australia. His dedication to capturing the often underacknowledged (hi)stories of the Vietnamese diaspora has earned him several accolades, including the Jury’s Choice Prize at the Angoulême International Comics Festival and the Doctors Without Borders Prize.
In this lecture, Baloup will speak about his career as a visual artist, the specific work involved with transcribing the testimonies of the Vietnamese diaspora into comic book form, and the repercussions and implications of the public dissemination of these same stories. This lecture will appeal to anyone with an interest in visual storytelling and in the representation of cultural identities more broadly.
Biography:
Baloup brings a unique perspective to the art of storytelling as enacted through the mobilisation of both image and word. Clément Baloup grew up in Europe, Polynesia, and South America. A graduate of the École des Beaux-Arts in Angoulême, he is the author and illustrator of the acclaimed Vietnamese Memories series and has collaborated with writers such as Goncourt Prize laureate Alexis Jenni. His work earned the Jury’s Choice Prize at the 2011 Angoulême International Comics Festival. Exhibited internationally, his art and teaching have taken him across Europe, Asia, Australia, and the Americas. He lives in Marseille, France.
For more information please contact:
Dr Charlotte MacKay European
Languages Faculty of Arts
Email: Charlotte.Mackay@monash.edu