thương: 2 person Solo Exhibition

The exhibition, thương features video and photography by Việt Lê and Ly Hoàng Ly, two Vietnamese Diasporic artists. Ly and Việt’s residency and exhibition is supported by the Beyond Boundaries Collaborative District, an AANAPISI Grant supported by the U.S. Department of Education, and co-sponsored with the APIDA + Center and the Ati: Wa:oki Indigenous Community Center. Their visit is part of programming for APIDA Heritage Month Commemorating the 30th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Viet Nam and the United States, and the 50th anniversary of engagements in Southeast Asia. Special thanks to Co-Organizer Scott Fralin. The exhibition reception is co- sponsored by the Residential College at West Ambler Johnston.

Artist Biographies

Ly Hoàng Ly,(real name Hoang, Ly) is a multidisciplinary artist working across poetry, painting, video, performance art, artist’s book, installation and public art. Ly graduated from the Ho Chi Minh City University of Fine Arts in 1999, received a Fulbright Scholarship in 2011 and earned her MFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), majoring in Sculpture in 2013. She also works as a book editor of Youth Publishing House in Ho Chi Minh City since 2000. Ly is the first woman visual artist in Vietnam doing performance art and poetry performance. Her installations incorporate a level of performance or activation between subjects and objects that unlock sensual affects in the human-materiality nexus.

Việt Lê’s @_vietle creative and critical practice as a queer, disabled artist focuses on sexualities, spiritualities–the physical and the metaphysical. Dr. Việt Lê is the author of Return Engagements (Duke University Press, 2021, which received the 2023 Outstanding Book Award in Media and Visual Culture from the Association of Asian American Studies), and collaborated with Latipa on the art book White Gaze (Sming Sming Books | Candor Art, 2019). Việt Lê is Professor Emeritus at California College of the Arts (former Chair, Visual & Critical Studies graduate program). They are a 2022-24 Headlands Bay Area Fellow and ‘22 Stanford CCSRE Mellon Arts Fellow. Lê has presented their work at the Shanghai Biennale, Rio Gay Film Festival, the Smithsonian, and other venues.