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The exhibition revisits French Indochina — a colony that included present-day Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia — to investigate how France exported the concept of “la civilisation française” by enforcing laws that favoured French economic and political interests, under the guise of “civilizing” the world.
In 1897, then-Governor-General Paul Doumer (later President of France) decreed the replacement of traditional units of land measurement, the thước đo đất or điền xích, with the metric system. This change was more than a simple conversion: the base unit was altered from a length equivalent to 47 cm to 40 cm, effectively benefiting colonial administration. 
The Ruling, a central installation, lines the gallery walls with multiple wooden rulers comparing the dimensions of the space in both measurement systems. The upper rulers, 40 cm in length, include statistics about French colonial rule in Indochina, while the lower rulers represent the traditional measurement unit, in điền xích, equalling 47 cm. The works underscore the loss of an ancient system and highlights how colonial authorities exploited the 15% discrepancy in unit measurement, inflating land sizes and, in turn, taxes on local farmers.