Open Studio: Tra My Nguyen & Lam Na at Vietnam Art Collection (VAC)

Artists Tra My Nguyen and Lam Na will present their works-in-progress at the Open Studio, taking place from June 14 to July 6, 2025, at the VIetnam Art Collection (VAC), 6/44/11 To Ngoc Van, Tay Ho, Hanoi. The event is part of the VAC Summer 2025 Residency Program, offering the public a first look at diverse artistic practices that reflect the relationships between memory, the body, materiality and time

Open Studio by Tra My Nguyen and Lam Na at Vietnam Art Collection.

Vietnam Art Collection (VAC) and the VAC Hanoi Residency

Vietnam Art Collection (VAC) is a non-profit arts organization based in Hanoi and New York, dedicated to researching, archiving and supporting contemporary Vietnamese art practices. VAC operates through two main programs: ARTIFACT, an archival and research initiative amplifying the voices of artists and creative communities in and from Vietnam; and LAUNCH, a program that supports the Vietnamese arts community. VAC also manages a collection of Vietnamese artworks spanning from the Indochina era masters to modern and contemporary artists. VAC works through an open network model, collaborating with curators, advisors, collectors and artists to build a sustainable, cross-border arts ecosystem.

The VAC Hanoi Residency, part of the LAUNCH project initiated and funded by VAC, was launched in April 2024. It aims to support artists in experimenting with new materials, methodologies, and creative thinking. The program allows artists to expand or reposition their practices in an interdisciplinary environment while fostering connections with the local and international arts community. Through collaborations with organizations and individuals both in and outside Vietnam, it provides artists with resources, professional networks, and greater visibility across regional platforms.

“SHE WHO MOVES” Open Studio – Artist Tra My Nguyen

Currently based in Berlin, Tra My Nguyen (b. 1992, Hanoi) is an interdisciplinary artist working across sculpture, moving images, installation and textile. Her work has been exhibited at venues such as Bundeskunsthalle Bonn (Germany), Bienalsur (Argentina) and VCCA Vincom Center for Contemporary Art (Vietnam). Her artistic practice, shaped by her life between Vietnam and Germany, explores the intersection of the body with systems of power, memory and histories of resilience and transformation. Through a visual language that blends cinematic and symbolic elements, she investigates embodiment, estrangement and transitions in a globalized context.

Series “Soft Armor” (2025) by artist Tra My Nguyen. Photo: VAC

As part of her 2025 summer residency at VAC, Tra My Nguyen introduces the first sequences of her ongoing film project SHE WHO MOVES, set in Hanoi and its surrounding regions. The film stems from research into personal and collective memories within the Vietnamese diaspora, capturing scenes from both rural and urban settings as it follows a young woman who moves fluidly through various physical and psychological landscapes. Her journey is fragmented, disjointed, and dreamlike, evoking an unstable presence within a world in constant flux.

Audience viewing the short film “She Who Moves” by artist Tra My Nguyen. Photo: VAC

Inspired by motorbike culture, femininity and ecological consciousness, the film considers movement as a state of “becoming.” At the film’s center is a fabric-and-silicone garment, functioning as an emotional tool to blur the boundaries between the real and the imagined, linear time and embodied memory. Alongside the film, Tra My presents a new series of textile works that expand on the film’s material themes through form and texture.

Through this open studio, Tra My invites the audience to reflect on questions such as: What does the body retain? How do images and material reflect memory? And can transformation occur quietly, at the delicate thresholds of emotion, rupture, and endurance?

A conversation with artist Tra My Nguyen was held in an open and intimate setting on Sunday, June 15, from 4:00 PM to 6:00 PM at VAC Hanoi.

“So many years before we meet again” Open Studio – Artist Lam Na

Born in 1987 in Vinh, Lam Na graduated from Hue College of Fine Arts and went on to earn a Master’s in Visual Arts from Mahasarakham University (Thailand). Her experiences across geographical and cultural contexts – from Central Vietnam to Thailand – have shaped an aesthetic framework in which material, particularly clay, is seen as a silent form of historical record. Her 2023 solo exhibition “Have Been – Eternally” at Hanoi Studio Gallery garnered significant public attention and marked a major milestone in her artistic practice.

The artwork exhibited in artist Lam Na’s solo show “Have Been – Eternally” at Hanoi Studio Gallery. Photo: VTVOnline

In her work, clay serves not only as a sculptural material but also as a mnemonic structure – accumulating, eroding and transforming over time through fire, handwork and life itself. She refers to this process as “soft collision – non-elastic”: a quiet impact that leaves a profound impression. Fired clay becomes a kind of “prehistoric hard drive,” a silent witness to the passage of time and transformation of matter.

During her residency at AirViNe #3, Lam Na developed a new body of work related to the Sa Huynh culture, a civilization that existed in southern Vietnam from 1000 BCE to 200 CE, contemporaneous with the Dong Son culture in the north. She integrates artifacts found in prehistoric caves in her native Nghe An province, constructing a system of ceramic sculptures that stage a dialogue between past and present, tradition and innovation. The clay forms are carefully shaped, fired and assembled – preserving the essence of the original objects while embedding them within new aesthetic structures.

“Những tấm da” (2025) by artist Lam Na

Simultaneously, Lam Na is developing a series of coffee-on-do-paper drawings, inspired by the café-studio space she currently runs. Each drawing accumulates images and language – portraits and symbols based on family members, repeated words, short poems and signs. Nearly 365 drawings have been completed so far, with the aim of creating 1,000 visual diary entries that will be displayed alongside a fossilized tree trunk.

The Open Studio presentation will include a video archive of the completed drawings, offering insights into her daily art-making and evolving visual language.

The artist talk “The Way Home of the First Creature” with Lam Na and Nguyen Tu Hang, organized in partnership between AirViNe and VAC, will take place at 6:30 PM on June 27 at VAC Hanoi. Registration is available via: Link

“Open Studio: Tra My Nguyen & Lam Na” places the audience within an unfolding process, where artworks remain in flux, materials are still drying and ideas are continuously evolving. Through this space, the two artists reveal the richness of their personal practices while quietly prompting encounters between memory, image and matter.