Duong Thuy Nguyen

27 May

Moving away from binary thought
By Zhai Qiutong

Duong Thuy Nguyen at her studio, London, 2022. Image courtesy of Rianti Gautama.

Vietnamese artist Duong Thuy Nguyen (b.1991) is a strong advocate for artists to bring pertinent messages across and beyond Southeast Asian communities. Born in Hanoi, Vietnam, Duong explores the intersections between contemporary art and social response and develops practice-based research that reflects social cohesion, community identity, and the interaction between humans and nature.

Duong is currently studying with a scholarship for her MA in Fine Art at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London. Aside from being a multi-disciplinary artist, she is also a writer with bylines in Art & Market, Ocula, and Plural Art Mag. From 2014, Duong worked as a researcher and lecturer at University of Theatre and Performing Arts of Hanoi. She has been working at Mekong Cultural Hub as a Regional Representative for Vietnam since 2020.

Duong Thuy Nguyen, ‘Unnamed land’, 2022, video Installation. Image courtesy of the artist.

Duong is one of the founders of the collective An.Other Asian (AOA). The recent ‘De-Oriented’ exhibition at Ugly Duck Gallery, the launch project for AOA, features marginalised and underrepresented young Southeast Asian artists living and working in London. The aim of the exhibition is to challenge stereotypes and misunderstandings of Southeast Asian cultures, and to represent rich and unique artistic practices that reflect the conditions of living in these post-colonial societies.

Duong’s ‘Unnamed Land’ (2022), exhibited at ‘De-Oriented', explores new visual language to engage with climate emergency and effects of urbanisation in Vietnam. Web-like engravings in the shape of the map of Hanoi crawl across the green tinted glass folding screen, mirroring the water tube that guides our eyes through concrete blocks, brick walls and onto an analogue television set. Revisiting her memory of Hanoi, ‘Unnamed Land’ negotiates geography and identity, revealing the political and social reality of life in Vietnam under the effect of the climate crisis. The water tube is equipped with a motion sensor such that green liquid moves within the tube and through concrete blocks as viewers pass by. The stimulated movement of the liquid draws connection with circulation within the human body. The life and preservation of a city is layered with the sense of immediacy that expresses direct consequences of the climate catastrophe on the energy and health of the people of the land.

Duong Thuy Nguyen, ‘Fragment of History’, Hanoi, a creative action. Image courtesy of photographer Nguyen Dinh Toan.

Duong’s practice explores innovative ways of storytelling and archiving microhistory with the aim of bringing these narratives to a broader community. For example, through the lens of Hanoi-born singer Loc Vang, who is known as “the one who was imprisoned for singing Yellow music”, Duong’s project ‘Creative Action-Fragments of History’ (2021) engages with the issue of state censorship and the heritage of Yellow music. Duong’s upcoming project at her residency at the Museum of the Home, is to develop a Vietnamese archive that envision accurate representations and preservation of the Vietnamese identity.

Click here to read our dialogue with Duong Thuy Nguyen.