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REVIEW

Tuấn Andrew Nguyễn’s Exploration of Collective Memory and Healing

Tuấn Andrew Nguyễn’s solo show at Zeitz MOCAA explores trauma, memory, and history, intertwining real and imagined narratives through film and sculpture.
tuan-andrew-ngueyn-zeitz-mocaa Tuấn Andrew Nguyễn, Because No One Living Will Listen / Người Sống Chẳng Ai Nghe, 2023. Two channel, 4K video, stereo,10 min. Film still.
by Jelena Martinović / December 10th, 2024

The practice of Vietnamese American artist Tuấn Andrew Nguyễn delves into the intricate intersections of memory, trauma, and history, often focusing on colonial violence. Spanning film, sculpture, and installation, his work weaves together real and imagined narratives to address themes of displacement, migration, and erased histories. Nguyễn's approach often oscillates between fact and fiction, using storytelling as a powerful tool to explore personal and collective memory.

The Other Side of Now, the artist's solo exhibition currently on display at Zeitz MOCAA, is an evocative and multilayered exploration of the transnational entanglements caused by colonization and war. Through film and sculpture, Nguyễn presents a powerful meditation on the erasure of voices across Vietnamese, Senegalese, and Moroccan histories. The exhibition invites viewers to engage with the complexities of memory, trauma, and healing, examining how we might reclaim obscured narratives and untangle the web of history that binds us all. 

Tuấn Andrew Nguyễn
Tuấn Andrew Nguyễn


Born in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, but growing up in the U.S., Nguyễn’s personal history is shaped by displacement, migration, and the trauma of war—themes that he grapples with in his art. His cinematic and sculptural works traverse borders, both literal and symbolic, merging personal and collective memories. Through speculative storytelling, he resurrects silenced voices and reimagines what healing might look like for fractured communities.

The exhibition features three of Nguyễn’s films: Because No One Living Will Listen (2023), The Specter of Ancestors Becoming (2019), and The Unburied Sounds of a Troubled Horizon (2022). These works span the years 1954 to 1972, tracing the aftermath of the First Indochina War through to the American War in Vietnam. From Moroccan soldiers stranded far from home to Senegalese-Vietnamese children grappling with a sense of dislocation, Nguyễn sensitively navigates the experiences of diaspora and migration with deep empathy.

Tuấn Andrew Nguyễn, The Specter of Ancestors Becoming, 2019
Tuấn Andrew Nguyễn, The Specter of Ancestors Becoming, 2019. 4-channel video installation, 2k, 7.1 surround sound, 28 minutes. Film still.


The films are complemented by sculptural objects that emerge directly from the cinematic world, creating a tactile connection between the viewer and history. Notable among these are the Singing Bowls (2022), crafted from brass artillery shells left over from war. These sculptures are not merely remnants; they carry the echoes of past violence, transformed into instruments of reflection and resonance. Similarly, the embroidered tapestries in A Breach (2024), made from Việt Minh propaganda leaflets, offer a delicate but potent reminder of the political forces that shaped the region. These objects extend the narrative beyond the screen, making the histories Nguyễn portrays both visually and physically palpable.

Tuấn Andrew Nguyễn, Because No One Living Will Listen / Người Sống Chẳng Ai Nghe, 2023
Tuấn Andrew Nguyễn, Because No One Living Will Listen / Người Sống Chẳng Ai Nghe, 2023. Two channel, 4K video, stereo,10 min. Film still.


The Other Side of Now offers spaces for empathy and healing, making historical traumas visible while imagining futures where such wounds might be reconciled. The exhibition raises the question of what lies beyond the present—how revisiting the past with new perspectives might shift our understanding and open up possibilities for healing. This notion is central to Nguyễn’s practice, as he weaves together personal and collective memories, creating speculative spaces where pain can be confronted and transformation might take place. By exploring what might emerge when we arrive at the "other side" of historical trauma, Nguyễn invites us to consider the aftermath of history—how voices, stories, and identities can be lost, distorted, or erased, and how they might be reclaimed.

The exhibition is part of an ongoing series of in-depth exhibitions by the museum that highlights and contextualizes the work of significant artists from Africa and the Diaspora, and those whose work engages with key topics in African history. “In the spirit of radical solidarity,” explains Beata America, curator of the exhibition and Zeitz MOCAA Assistant Curator, “our program looks beyond the continent’s borders, attending to new and old entanglements that implicate the world in Africa and Africa in the world.”

The exhibition, The Other Side of Now, will be on view at Zeitz MOCAA in Cape Town until July 15th, 2025.