artLIVE – Open Studio features two summer 2025 resident artists, Tra My Nguyen and Lam Na, inviting the public to witness their ongoing art projects and new practices developed during their residency at Vietnam Art Collection (VAC).
“Open Studio” by Tra My Nguyen & Lam Na is a space of honesty, experimentation, and dialogue – where film, fabric, ceramics, clay, and coffee become living memories, gradually taking shape as art. For the two artists, this is a rare moment to invite the public into their ongoing creative journeys.
Open Studio ‘SHE WHO MOVES’ – Artist Tra My Nguyen
Tra My Nguyen is a multidisciplinary artist based in Berlin, Germany. Her creative journey spans sculpture, animation, installation, and textiles, driven by a desire to explore the depths of material culture through the lens of the Vietnamese diaspora. Her work questions the relationship between the body and structures of power, collective memory, and the histories of resilience.
During her residency at the Vietnam Art Collection (VAC), Tra My shares early excerpts from a new film project shot in Hanoi and its surrounding areas. The film unfolds like a haze of memory, dissolving the boundaries between the personal and the migrant Vietnamese community. Viewers are led through the footsteps of a young woman whose physical and mental journey weaves through fragmented spaces and times, fleeting emotions, and inner realms quietly undergoing transformation.
Inspired by the flow of Vietnamese motorbike traffic and imagined notions of femininity and ecology, she uses movement as a form of “becoming”. A garment made of silicone and fabric—both soft and surreal—becomes the emotional heart of the film, like a second skin that captures the subtlest moments of embodiment.
Alongside the film, Tra My also presents her latest textile works, where material and form are pushed beyond familiar limits—echoing the film’s themes through texture, color, and sculptural presence that appeal more to the senses than to logic.
In this Open Studio space, she invites the audience to reflect: What does the body hold? What do images and materials reveal about memory? And can transformation arrive not with an explosion but through quiet fissures—where emotions fracture and resilience slowly emerges?
Open Studio ‘After Many Years Apart’ – Artist Lam Na
Born in 1987 in Vinh, artist Lam Na graduated from the University of Fine Arts in Hue and went on to earn a Master’s degree in Visual Arts from Mahasarakham University in Thailand—a place that shaped her contemplative approach to materials. In recent years, she has gained recognition through her solo exhibition Have Been – Eternally (Hanoi Studio Gallery, 2023) and her participation in art programs in Bangkok, Hua Hin, and Seoul.
In her Open Studio ‘After Many Years Apart’, Lâm Na works at the intersection of found objects and fired clay, referring to her practice as a “soft collision – non-elastic.” To her, clay is a kind of “prehistoric hard drive”—a place where the silent movements of matter over time are stored. During her residency at AiRViNe #3, she developed a body of work inspired by the Sa Huynh culture—an ancient civilization that coexisted with Đong Son—combined with artifacts from prehistoric caves in Nghe An. Through a meticulous process of firing and assembling, these objects are “awakened”, entering a new dialogue between tradition and the present.
In addition to her sculptural practice, Lam Na has initiated a project of coffee paintings on Dó paper—a steady stream of work that began in a small café space within her studio. Nearly 365 drawings, aiming toward a total of 1,000, weave together text, symbolism, portraiture, and poetry. These pieces will be displayed alongside a fossilized tree trunk, forming an immersive installation of living memory. A video screening in the Open Studio further reveals her daily practice and evolving visual language.
The opening reception will take place from 17:00 to 19:00 on Friday, June 13, 2025, at the Vietnam Art Collection (VAC), located at 6/44/11 To Ngoc Van, Tay Ho, Hanoi. The Open Studio will be open to the public from June 14 to July 6, 2025, daily from 10:00 to 18:00 (closed on Monday, June 16).
Photo: Vietnam Art Collection (VAC)
