Ho Chi Minh City has a unique and lasting relationship to water. The city’s existence is founded on the waterways and subsequent canals that were built to turn the city into a global trade port. The Kenh Tẻ (Tẻ canal) was constructed in the early 20th century to relieve barge congestion on the Ben Nghe canal. This canal has suffered the same fate as many of the city’s waterways, becoming polluted and unloved. But the Kenh Tẻ has developed its own cultural attributes, a close community, a floating market, and a fascinating urban environment.
Analyzing the historical maps of Ho Chi Minh City and archival resources, which inspired the structure and objectives of our project, shows that the canals and adjacent communal areas have been the subject of discussion about modernization and urbanscape since colonial times. Gathered historical documents illuminate the colonial urban project of 1906, now shaping the landscape of Districts 4 and 7 in Ho Chi Minh City. The colonial project’s objective was annexing the Khanh Hoi village into Saigon’s municipality. The documentation of the process underlines the struggle of the local residents to maintain their territorial integrity amidst the urban evolution of Saigon. The proposed integration of Khanh Hoi and Chanh Hung into Saigon laid the groundwork for the ‘canal de dérivation,’ now recognized as the Kênh Tẻ. We can follow urban transformation by analyzing the negotiations and debates, from land disputes to transportation and housing concerns, especially underlining the incongruent shape of traditional wooden architecture and the more modernized cityscape.
The project Biography of the Sai Gon River, finished in June 2024, focused specifically on Kênh Tẻ’s surroundings and featured the stories of the area’s community, preserving the memory of the current state of the canal. The project was developed as a component of the RMIT Vietnam team in the global River Cities Network. The research tasks involved creating and evaluating a method for collecting and utilizing stories about daily life around the Kênh Tẻ. Recognizing the potential of new media communication, the team applied Virtual Reality (VR) technology, AR (augmented reality) and experimental poetry to create an immersive exhibition of history and locality aimed at local and international viewers.
The two-week exhibition, hosted by a local Lotus Gallery, presented aspects of life on and around the Kênh Tẻ. The chosen communication mediums – VR, AR, photography, and experimental poetry – are different but closely related through their ability to reconstruct reality, which can be experienced multiple times and in multiple configurations. The presented works questioned our understanding of heritage. We argued that the unexceptional spaces of the Kênh Tẻ environment are critically important to understanding the heritage and history of the more expansive city. Positioning the everyday as heritage changes our perception that heritage is only found in objects and very old infrastructures.
