Public Programs @ the Institute
Gender, Autonomy, and Performance in Vietnam: An Evening with Lại Diệu Hà and Nhi Lê
Tuesday, February 3, 2026, 6:00pm
Lại Diệu Hà, artist, Nhi Lê, artist, Lumi Tan, curator, moderated by Catherine Quan Damman
The Institute of Fine Arts is pleased to present an intergenerational conversation on performance in Vietnam with two prominent artists: Lại Diệu Hà (b. 1976, Hà Nội) and Nhi Lê (b. 1993, Ho Chi Minh City). The history of experimental performance in Vietnam is characterized by artistic autonomy that emerged after the Đời Mới reforms of 1986 and the resulting globalization. Representing the second and third generations of Vietnamese performance artists, Lại and Lệ’s practice addresses strategies of visibility and rituals of gathering under increased government and citizen surveillance, and complex questions regarding gendered embodiment.
This conversation, moderated by curator Lumi Tan and the IFA‘s Catherine Quan Damman is a satellite event related to We Exist… a project on contemporary Vietnamese performance co-organized between Tan, maura nguyễn donohue (artist and Director of the MFA in Dance at Hunter College/CUNY), and Anh Vo (Artist/Writer), across several venues, including an artist residency and public program series at Performance Space New York and issue #62 of Movement Research Performance Journal.
Lại Diệu Hà is a prominent artist working in performance art and installation in Vietnam. Over the last 10 years, Ha has turned her attention to sculpture and painting as a way to document her performance history, redrawing many of her singular performances in detail and presenting these works as part of an installation space. She has also begun experimenting with textile wearable sculptures with everyday shapes like fruit, breads and branches covered by bright colors, inviting us to reflect on the synthetic nature of our realities as well as our interconnectedness and the stories we weave in this ever-changing world. Select exhibitions include Psychodrama Therapy (2014), Rapid Pulse International Performance Art Festival, Chicago, USA, Mind, Flesh, Matter (2014), Sàn Art, Ho Chi Minh City, and Conservation of Vitality (2015) a solo show with Cuc Gallery, Hanoi, Vietnam. She was on view through January 2025 as part of Who is Weaving the Sky Net at Yeo Workshop, Singapore.
Nhi Lê works in installation, performance art, and visual art. Based in Saigon, Vietnam, her work explores themes of human instinct and our relation with space and time through mixed mediums and familiar objects with potentially metaphorical meanings. Nhi aims to create a spiritual and safe art place where the audience can confront their inner selves and egos. Her art practice focuses on evoking critical thinking towards one’s true self and redefining values that shape behaviours within the social system, exploring the role of human connection in modern times. As part of the iSEE You Can Talk to Me (2020) she presented You can tell me your secrets and non-existent secrets. She most recently appeared at the Vietnam Museum of Fine Arts in the exhibition 2024 Covenant. Le Phuong is also known by the pen name Leo with illustrations and caricatures for newspapers and publishers under this pen name since 2001. Discovering new methods of experiencing art is her long-term subject.
Lumi Tan is a curator and writer based in New York City. She is the curator for the 2026 Converge 45 citywide exhibition in Portland, Oregon, and a curator for Focus at Frieze New York. From 2010 to 2022, she was senior curator at The Kitchen in New York where she organized exhibitions and produced performances with artists including Kevin Beasley, Meriem Bennani, Gretchen Bender, Abraham Cruzvillegas, Autumn Knight, Moor Mother, Sondra Perry, The Racial Imaginary Institute, Tina Satter, Kenneth Tam, Danh Vo, and Anicka Yi. Prior to The Kitchen, Tan was guest curator at the Fonds Régional d’Art Contemporain Nord Pas-de-Calais in France, director at Zach Feuer Gallery, and curatorial assistant at MoMA PS1. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Artforum, Frieze, Mousse, Cura, numerous exhibition catalogs and university publications. She was the recipient of a 2020 VIA Art Fund Curatorial Fellowship, and has been visiting faculty at the School of Visual Arts, New York; the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College; and the Yale School of Art.
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