The Foodie Space

Location: Pasadena Museum of California Art, 490 East Union Street, Pasadena, CA 91101
Exhibition dates: November 21, 2018 - April 1, 2019                                                                                                           Artist panel discussion: Tuesday, December 11, 2018 (time to be determined)                                    

It’s been a joy to develop this food-centered exhibition with a small group of southern California artists. I’ve been invited alongside two women artists to create for our community an immersive, interactive exhibition, dedicated to the foods that we’ve prepared together, the foods that summon our sense of nostalgia, and the foods that have shaped our culture and identities.

For one of my projects, I’ve created a phở room to represent my Vietnamese heritage. Still simmering are the memories of mother and grandmother cooking phở for our family, carrying out the family recipes made with pride and with love. For my other installation, I’ve prepared a tea room, in memory of my Bà Ngoại (grandmother). She would impart with me a lifetime of stories as we sat at her dining room table and sipped on tea.

Our team is proud to present this family-friendly, playful, and colorful exhibition that shares our love of food and how our culture informs it, and how it, in turn, informs our culture.

Read our article in the Daily Bruin

Salt Stained 

Presented by Chopsticks Alley as part of San Jose Museum of Art's New Terrains: Movement and Migration              Location: Art Object Gallery, 592 North Fifth Street, San Jose, CA 95112                                                Exhibition dates: September 8 - October 27, 2018                                                                                    Opening reception: September 8, 2018                                                                                                      Artist Portfolio Workshop with Trinh Mai: September 16, 2018, 10:30am - 12pm                                                            Harvest: An Art-making Workshop with Trinh Mai: September 16, 2018, 3 - 5 pm  Closing reception: Friday, October 26, 2018, 6 - 8 pm 

Inspired by a multi-disciplinary, community-wide collaboration, the San Jose Museum of Art will be presenting New Terrains: Movement and Migration, a series of cross-disciplinary, region-wide exhibitions and programs which will explore the human side of immigration debates and their particular relevance to the Bay Area community.  

I am happy to be returning to the Bay Area to showing with artists Binh Danh (Welcome home, Binh!), Thinh Thi Tuong, Kenneth x Lola, and Tuan Tran, whose works speak on this theme of water and movement that runs deeply through my work and my veins. Thank you, Sayre and Trami, for thinking of my work!

Read about our show here in the San Jose Metro.

Feminist Refugee Epistemology: Reading Displacement in Vietnamese and Syrian Refugee Art 

By Authors Yến Lê Espiritu and Lan Dương                                                                                                                          Signs: Journal of Woman in Culture and Society  Volume 43 | Number 3 | Spring 2018
Published by the University of Chicago Press                                                                                                                     

Publication date: Spring 2018

Yến Lê Espiritu and Lan Duong have published an article that introduces the concept of feminist refugee epistemology, offering insight to how refugee artwork offers space for new perspectives and new knowledge. I’m touched that they included my work, Quiet, 2015, into their article alongside artists Nisrine Boukhari, Tiffany Chung, and Foundland (Ghalia Elsrakbi and Lauren Alexander) whose epistolary work document their roles as Feminist/Refugee/Artist. Espiritu and Duong maintain that visual art plays a vital role in helping document the facets of history that are not publicized, but are known and experienced, and therefore, are very much a real part of what we call history.

Read article

The Blue Hour Anthology 

Published by Blue Hour Press of the Pacific Northwest                                                                                                      Publication date: Summer 2018

I am pleased that Blue Hour Press will be publishing several collections of my works in their upcoming spring issue. Among them, it especially warms my lungs to have the I Breathe With You series going to press. After years (over a decade) of talking collaboration, Kelly and I finally put our wings to work and created this special series as an ode to her bones and a prayer for her healing. While she was in Seattle and I in Orange County, we took turns working on each of these intimate mixed-media pieces, sending them back and forth to one another until they professed themselves finished. 

Thank you, Susie and Blue Hour Press, for publishing such a significant collection of work that commemorates the passion for art that we shared, and the precious time that we had together. (Look, Belle. Together. Always together.)

Pacific Symphony's Arts-X-Press 

Sponsored by Pacific Symphony                                                                                                                                            Hosted by Concordia University, 1530 Concordia West Irvine, CA 92612                                                                     Dates: July 21-25, 2018

I am very excited to have been invited to serve as a visual arts instructor for this year's arts-X-press. Not only is this important summer arts immersion program important in introducing and engaging our youth in an array of creative practices, but the programs a testimony that beauty can indeed blossom from tragedy. To honor the memory of his son Cole, Pacific Symphony's Music Director Carl St.Clair sought to establish an arts-based program that would have a lasting impact on the community and in the lives of young people. 

Thank you, Pacific Symphony, for giving me this opportunity to help strengthen confidence in our creative minds of our youth!

Ruminate Magazine: Hauntings     

Issue 47 : Summer 2018

Focusing on Faith, Life, Art, things that matter, and respect for one another’s stories, Ruminate Magazine embraces this beautiful and trying journey. Sharing the lifeline of my body of work, I am absolutely delighted that not only will images from my (our) collaborative series of work, A Time to Heal, be published alongside writers whose work pours from heart, but one of our pieces (Rachel!) also made it on the cover of the Spring 2018 issue!

Founded in Fort Collins, Colorado, Ruminate Magazine is a publication that is inspired by creativity and compassion, and encourages us to slow down, encounter art and story, and awaken our heart and nourish the Soul.  By offering writers and artists a platform for us to share our stories, we find the details in the written and visual languages that connect us in simple and profound ways.

Purchase Issue 47 and subscribe to Ruminate to support spiritually-motivated art.

Hướng Nước  //  Inheritance  //  Water  

Location: Portland Children's Museum, 4015 Southwest Canyon Road, Portland, OR 97221
Exhibition dates: February 6 - May 9, 2018                                                                                                                          Member's Preview Reception and Lantern workshop: Thursday, February 8, 5:30 - 7pm                                                Curation and statement by Dao Strom

We are inheritors. Of water. Of land. Of memories. Of histories we do not always choose. Of ancestors. Of ghosts. Of grief. Of ghosts of ancestors, culture, memory, trauma. We are inheritors of stories. Of arrivals and escapes. Of flight. Of landing. Of the sometimes hard-to-trace paths, and the passage in between. In Vietnamese the word hướng means ‘path’ or ‘direction’, but (if you change the accent marks) it can also mean ‘to inherit’ (hưởng). The word nước means both ‘water’ and ‘country’. So hướng nước may suggest our inheritance of water, our passages across water, as well the paths of our inheritance.

Each of the artists in this show are inheritors of the Vietnamese diasporic experience. Our work reflects hướng nước – or the intermingled elements of inheritance and water – in varying ways.

Portland Children’s Museum encourages children’s expression and discovery through reflection and creativity, and as a way to pass on these stories to our future generations, I am proud to be part of this group show which features four Vietnamese women artists.

Thanks you, Dao Strom and Portland Children's Museum, for the invitation.   View photos

She Who Has No Master/s  

Presented by the Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center for the United States of Asian America Festival           Poetic Performance and Visual Art Exhibition with the students of San Francisco State University                                Location: International Hotel Manilatown Center, 868 Kearny Street @ Jackson Street, San Francisco, CA                Date: May 5, 2018   6:30 - 8:30pm                                                                                                                                    Poetic Performance and Visual Art Exhibition with She Who Has No Masters                                                                           Location: Asian Art Museum, 200 Larkin Street, San Francisco, CA                                                                                   Date: May 6, 2018   11am - 12:30pm                                                                                                                      

To expound on the theme of "Regenerative Community", the women of She Who Has No Master(s) will be performing their collaborative poetry that touch on themes of sexual and power abuses as experienced though the Asian American lens. I've been invited to take part in both writing and performing this collaborative poem, as well as to supplement these special performances by presenting new artwork to bring a visual component to these performances that speak upon these issues from the perspective of the Vietnamese feminine.

Art and Inheritance

Sponsored by UC Irvine School of Humanities 
Location:  Social Science Hall 159, University of California, Irvine  (interactive campus map)
Art Talk:  Tuesday, May 1, 2018   12:30 - 1:50pm  

I'm happy to be returning to campus to present my work for an intimate group of honors students from the Asian American Studies department. It's always a privilege to connect with these special students who have dedicated their time to delving into their deep history and the history of their neighbors. 

I'm very grateful to have a family whose openness and support has led me down this search, and it's an honor to be able to share their (our) stories with the youth who are setting out to do the same. 

Thank you, UC Irvine for this opportunity to share my passion in art and its value in the search for a deeper meaning of life. 

Family Tree and Vietgone in San Francisco 

Presented by American Conservatory Theater (ACT) 
Location: The Strand Theater, 1127 Market Street, San Francisco, CA 94103                                    
Dates: March 11, 2018 -  April 22, 2018                                                                                                                                     

To celebrate their new production of Qui Nguyen’s play, Vietgone, ACT will be featuring my work as part of their observance of Vietnamese culture. My Family Tree series has been exhibited in almost a dozen shows, but because it was created in the Bay Area, I am utterly thrilled that it will be making its debut in San Francisco in such unique fashion—on The Strand's spectacular LED light wall! The Family Tree series shares many of the same themes as Vietgone in its excavation of family history and the contrast between the mundane memories of the everyday and the momentous experiences when fighting and fleeing war. Also, Qui and I both spent time researching at UC Irvine's Southeast Asian Archive in the development of our work, and it's exciting to see how our discoveries have led to such different modes of expression, but yet with such similar notes.

This is an exciting partnership. Thank you, ACT, for featuring my work! 

View photos

Oceanside Museum of Art's Annual Art Auction   

Location: Oceanside Museum of Art, 704 Pier View Way, Oceanside, CA 92054                                                    Preview Exhibition: March 31 - April 7, 2018                                                                                                                      Art Auction: Saturday, April 7, 2018   6-7pm VIP Preview Hour,  7-9pm General Auction       

I am so very happy to have been invited to have five of my artworks in OMA's 2018 Annual Art Auction! It's a privilege to be showing work alongside a band of San Diego's finest artists. Thank you, OMA for being so supportive of my work throughout the years, and to Maria and Katie for this amazing opportunity to help support the arts and OMA in its mission to providing the community with opportunities to explore the arts!

Purchase tickets to show your support 

Art: A Passage to Unearthing History  

Location: Portland Art Museum, 1219 Southwest Park Avenue, Portland, OR 97205
Events as part of Miller Family Free Day:                                                                                                                                  Artist Talk: March 10, 2018  11am-12pm                                                                                                                              Art-making Workshop: March 10, 2018  12-2pm

I have been invited to present my work in an artist talk as part of Common Ground, a show of Fazal Sheikh’s humanitarian photographs that address issues of immigration and displacement. 

Our visual artworks weave into themes of war and perseverance through struggle and hardship, and I am honored to be sharing among the company of such powerful and influential artistry.

After the talk, I'll be facilitating an art-making workshop during which participants will be encouraged to use photos from their own family archives to create collages, in hopes that these works will help begin/continue conversations with family members to unearth history.   

View photos

Tahirih Justice Center Benefit Gala  

Location: Crowne Plaza Hotel, 1177 Airport Boulevard, San Francisco, CA 94010
Date: Thursday, March 8, 2018                                                                                                                                                        VIP reception 6pm; General reception 6:30pm; Dinner program 7:30pm                                                               

The mission of Tahirih Justice Center is to promote justice for women and girls worldwide. Tahirih stands alone as the only national, multi-city organization providing a broad range of direct legal services, policy advocacy , and training and education to protect immigrant women and girls fleeing gender-based violence. The center was named after a Persian poet named Tahirih. Born in 1814, she led, organized, and inspired the women to stand against oppression during a time when most women were kept illiterate and voiceless.

I am honored to have been invited to take part in Tahirih's inaugural benefit gala. Thank you, Christine, for the opportunity to utilize my art in helping empower our belovèd sisters!

Purchase tickets to show your support for our girls and women

Year of the Dog: Pacific Symphony's Lantern Festival 

Presented by the Pacific Symphony
Location: Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, 615 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa, CA 92626
Festival Date: Sunday March 4, 2018   12-3pm
Free and open to the public

It's exciting to be working with Pacific Symphony again on this year's lantern installation for the Segerstrom Concert Hall, celebrating the 2018 Lunar New Year of the Dog. On display will be hundreds of hand-painted lanterns by students of Heninger Village Art Studio (Community Engagement), Nguoi Viet Senior Art Society (Bowers Museum), and artists from Orange County Chinese Artists Association. Included this year's schedule of events will also be an art display, showcasing the works of artists of Heninger Village Art Studio.

Chúc Mừng Năm Mới, Everyone! (Happy Lunar New Year!)

View photos here

Boca De Oro | Mouth of Gold  

Breaking Tables                                                                                                                                                                                Presented by Orange County’s Second Annual Art & Literature Festival  
Location: Chapter One Red Room, 227 North Broadway, Santa Ana, CA 92701
Date: Saturday, March 3, 2018  4-6pm
Free and open to all ages

Curated by Darlene and Wes Kriesel, Breaking Tables is a literary, spoken word, and musical showcase. As Phase II of Boca De Oro, this event gathers artists whose work shares in themes of the breaking of barriers, the creation of new spaces, and the opening doors for innovation, for love, and for creativity in our personal lives, communities, and in society at large.

After having been so long since I’d written, I am extremely excited to be sharing some of my recent work on the mic, including work that was written in honor of my late sister, Kelly.

Thank you, Madeleine, Darlene, and Wes, for the invitation to share some of my written and spoken words with the community.

Register for this event

Inspiration, Insight, and Inheritance

Presented by Coastline Art Gallery
Location: Coastline Community College, 1515 Monrovia Ave. Newport Beach, CA 92663
Date: Wednesday, February 21, 2018, 12pm

I've been invited to Coastline Community College's beautiful beachfront campus to talk art as part of their Lunchtime Lectures Series. I'll spend some time sharing my work and my family history, and talk about the ways that art has encouraged intergenerational dialogue. 

Thank you, David Lee, and Coastline for having me!

Community Engagement Residency to benefit Heninger Village          

Residency Dates: February 2016 - February 2018

Thanks to Community Engagement in partnership with Grand Central Art Center, and an overwhelming amount of community support, I am happy to announce that I’ve been selected for their yearlong residency! Community Engagement's mission is to promote positive individual and community change within low-income communities through social practice, and my project’s aim is to bring visual art to the Heninger Village community as a way of documenting history and encouraging intergenerational dialogues through art. I am really loving this collaborative community work. 

This is going to be such a fulfilling experience. What a wonderful way to begin the new year. Thank you to everyone who had a hand in helping make this happen for us! 

Read more about social practice in this New York Times article, where Grand Central Art Center is mentioned, and also about the work that Community Engagement has been doing in OC Weekly!

Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 

Published at Ohio State University through the University of Nebraska Press
Publication date: Summer 2017

Frontiers is one of the premier publications in the field of feminist/gender studies. First published in 1975 at the University of Colorado, Boulder, Frontiers continues the tradition of examining relationships among place, region, and topics of longstanding concern to feminist scholars - gender, race, ethnicity, class, dis/ability, and sexuality. Alongside its commitment to supporting the kinds of scholarship that have afforded this journal its visibility and respect in the field, the journal also supports the arts by providing a space for feminist and gender conscious artists to share their work upon her pages. 

I am proud to announce that my artwork has been chosen to appear on the cover of Frontiers’ 38.1 issue (summer 2017), along with two other pieces which will be highlighted in the journal. Thank you to the editing team for this great opportunity to share my work!

Read my blog entry, Hôm Nay, Hồn Này, to learn more about this cover piece.

A Time to Heal      

Presented in partnership with Oceanside Museum of Art and MiraCosta College
Events taking place at Oceanside Museum of Art:                                                                                                                   Preview Dates: June 2-16, 2017  (Display of veterans' works, museum lobby)                                                                Exhibition Dates: July 29 - October 8, 2017  (display of collaborative works, Parker Gallery)                                       Receptions: Saturday, June 3, 2017 and Friday, August 4, 2017,  6-8pm                                                                           Lecture: Thursday, August 31, 2017  6-7:30pm                          

Traveling to MiraCosta College: November 6 - December 14, 2017                                                                                    Lecture at MiraCosta College: Thursday, November 9, 2017, 4-6pm;  Reception 6-7:30pm  

A Time to Heal is a performative, socially engaging, fine art project whose mission is to provide a safe space for our war veterans to reflect and share their stories with the community as they work with a team of artists in developing mixed media self portraits. Our hope is that we, as a community, can be proactive in our personal and collective healing and support each other during the process by stimulating dialogues of healing and humanity through creativity. A Time to Heal features works made with collaborative efforts by Trinh Mai, J.Grant Brittain, and service members of MiraCosta College, Rachel Davis, Michelle Vesley, Christopher Weathers, and John Wayne.

We thank our partnering organizations for their generous support:

  Chrome Digital                            J. Grant Brittain                                   Grand Central Art Center                                   Community Engagement           MiraCosta Veterans Services               The Artist Odyssey    

View photos of our time together, learn more about these pieces, watch our video about this project, or check out our Q&A (password: together) 

Culture and Creativity: Retelling History Through Artistic Expression  

Sponsored by Cal State Fullerton Department of American Studies
Location: California State University, Fullerton, University Hall (campus map)
Date: Monday, November 6, 2017  11:30 – 12:45pm

I have been invited to present my work for Dr. Susie Woo’s American Immigrant Cultures class, which examines how diverse immigrant cultures have shaped what it means to be American. Speaking on conceptions of home, war, perseverance, arrival, and inheritance, I will speak on how art has helped me tell the stories that I’ve lived through and the stories that I’ve inherited, and how this has enriched this American experience.

Thank you for having me, Titans!

 Left: Drawing by Gary Hodges

Artistic Vision: Trinh Mai renders a personal history 

Publication date: August 2017

This summer, my work will be featured in the Artistic Vision segment of Orange County's Coast Magazine! Coast is the monthly regional luxury lifestyle publication for tastemakers in Orange County. Each month this glossy magazine and its website offer informed and entertaining insights into the fascinating personalities of the area, along with the best in fashion, dining, architecture, interior design, arts and culture.

Creating Art from your Stories:  A Workshop with Trinh Mai 

Sponsored by Illuminations
Presented by the Orange County & Southeast Asian Archive Center, University of California, Irvine
Location: Room to be announced
                 University of California, Irvine (interactive campus map)
Date: May 23, 2017   12:30-1:50pm 

The first ever conference that I attended took place at UC Irvine, and I’m excited to be returning in the spring to facilitate a hands-on art workshop for students and faculty as part of the 30th anniversary of the Southeast Asian Archive.

A big thank you to the OC&SEAA Center and Illuminations for supporting arts and culture across campus!

'War Wounds' at Grand Central Art Center Takes on the Poetics of Hurt

An art review in the OC Weekly by Dave Barton 
Publication date: April 20, 2017

I was elated to wake up this morning to find that my work has been recognized in the OC Weekly by art aficionado, Dave Barton. During his visit to Grand Central Art Center, he spent some time with my newest work, War Wounds, closely examining the piece, both as a visual art form and as a message of hope and a hope for healing. I was so touched that our wounds have been given this kind of media attention, and even more so that they were illustrated by such a skillful writer and art lover who is receptive to the underlying messages of the work. His words, thoughtful and vivid, allowed me to see this project from someone else’s perspective as he was experiencing it for the first time. After spending countless hours in the studio crafting over thirty of these wounds, I only know my relationship with them—laborious and obsessive, meditative and healing, burdening and alleviating. It has touched me deeply to experience the way this particular piece speak to others, and it was especially moving to experience the work from the perspective of someone who can so eloquently describe the ideas and feelings that stirred as he observed. 

Thank you so very much, Dave Barton, for spending time with the work, for your support along this journey, and for the way you give such careful attention to the arts. 

War Wounds  

Sponsored by CSUF Grand Central Art Center
Location:  125 N. Broadway, Santa Ana, CA 92701
Receptions will take place on the following Saturdays from 7-10pm during Santa Ana Art Walk: 
       November 4, 2016;  December 3, 2016;  February 4, 2017;  March 4, 2017; April 2, 2017;  May 6, 2017
Dates:  October 24, 2016 - May 14, 2017

After eight months into my residency, I'm thrilled to have my new installation, War Wounds, on display at GCAC.

Grand Central Art Center’s tagline is “ART UNRESTRICTED”, and I can attest through my own experience that the staff here strives to uphold this idea as promise.   

We are a community that comprises of painters, illustrators, photographers, composers, sculptors, actors, screenwriters, set designers, writers, pianists, art educators, curators, just to name a few of the practices that have been nourished within and around the walls of Grand Central.  From carefully planned exhibitions to impromptu performances and spontaneous collaborations, the artists who have been invited here are expected to do one thing – make more good art.

Through the vast amount of resources offered here, amidst the constant stirring of inspiration, we are encouraged to expand in our work, and can easily find opportunities for the community involvement that quickens our spirits. Founded upon the values of supporting creativity, professionalism in the art world, community engagement, following intuition, and allowing spur-of-the-moment ideas to take root and bear fruit, Grand Central Art Center has been a place where artists are afforded complete liberty to move in whichever direction(s) they find themselves drawn, for therein is where we find our truth.

While I was experimenting in the studio with a new body of work for an upcoming show, Director John Spiak offered me a public space to work through the process. My new installation, War Wounds, is now displayed on Grand Central's project wall, hovering over those who are making their way to the flamenco and artists' studios.

Thank you, John and Tracey, for the love you’ve shown to me and to our community.

Art Talk at Southland Integrated Services  

Location: Southland Integrated Services (formerly known as VNCOC), 1618 W. First St. Santa Ana, CA 92703
Date: April 1, 2017  10am - 12pm

It is my privilege to share my work and how it has been shaped by my heritage and my community.

Southland's mission is to provide community services for individuals and families that enable them to thrive and become valuable and highly valued participants of Orange County's culture and society.

Formerly known as Vietnamese Community of Orange County (VNCOC), Southland is dedicated to helping all communities regardless of race, ethnicity or language and seeks to break down the barriers that prevent individuals from enjoying all that Orange County has to offer. Established in 1979 as a refugee resettlement support agency operating out of a makeshift storefront office in an area that now became today’s Little Saigon, the VNCOC had gradually expanded its operations to respond to the rapidly evolving needs of the local Vietnamese-American population (est. 200,000), the largest concentration of Vietnamese outside of Vietnam. Now, with some 15 social service programs and a Community Economic Development Project provided at our headquarters in Santa Ana and the branch offices in Westminster and Garden Grove, Southland—the largest non-profit, community-based of its kind—has touched the lives of tens of thousands of people and has come to be regarded as an invaluable institution in the Vietnamese-American community.

A special thanks to Lead Clinician Kim Xuyen Ngo for the invitation!

On Life: For the Memory  

Presented by the Vietnamese American Society of Creative Arts and Music (VASCAM)
Location: Musco Center for the Arts, Chapman University, One University Drive, Orange, CA 92866
Date: Sunday, March 26, 2017  4pm

To celebrate the opening of Chapman University’s new Marybelle and Sebastian P. Musco Center for the Arts, VASCAM presents its first concert of the year, On Life. Through the contemporary musical language of Cung Tiên, Tôn Thât Tiêt, and scenes from the opera, The Tale of Lady Thị Kính by P.Q. Phan, On Life is a concert which narrates the detailed experiences of life, particularly from the perspective of the Vietnamese American, who has faced the challenges of multiculturalism, dualism, the preservation of tradition and time. 

My work will be showcased during the performance of P.Q. Phan’s operatic composition, Isolation, from his Songs of Solitude collection. I've curated selection of my works to be presented, those that speak to the feeling and somber nature of isolation. This visual arrangement will be projected upon the backdrop during his concert, creating a conversation between visual art and music. 

Purchase tickets 

Resound, Roots, and Revitalize Our Words

Presented by LibroMobile + Community Engagement
Location:  Grand Central Art Center, 125 N. Broadway, Santa Ana, CA 92701
Show Dates:  Saturday, March 18, 2017   2-4pm with reception to follow  

I am so proud to be working with the artists of Heninger Village in developing our poetry and musical showcase. We will be opening for poet Kimberly Alidio with a reading of works by Langston Hughes read by La Verne Culpepper, Sharonda Caldwell, and yours truly, original poetry written and read by Teresa Roehmer, and original music written and performed by Joe Buffardi (A.K.A. "Joey B."). A collection of original artwork by our Heninger Village artists will also compliment this creative showcase. We hope you'll join us!

Thank you, Sarah Rafael García, for the invitation and opportunity to share these very special artists' work!

Trinh Mai: An Artist’s Vietnamese American Journey  

Presented by Pasadena Public Library
March 1 – 31, 2017:           Trinh Mai's Art Exhibit, North Entrance of the Pasadena Central Library                             March 2, 2017, 7pm:          A Conversation with Việt Thanh Nguyễn, Pulitzer Prize Winning Author, All Saints Church
March 14, 2017, 4-5pm:    A Conversation with Jonathan Gold, Pulitzer Prize Winner & Food Critic for the                                                                  Los Angeles Times, Donald Wright Auditorium, Pasadena Central Library                     March 18, 2017, 11am:      A Conversation with Trinh Mai: An Artist's Vietnamese American Journey,                                                                              Donald Wright Auditorium, Pasadena Central Library                                 

As part of the library's celebration of Vietnamese culture for the month of March, I’ll have a collection of art on display and will also be doing a presentation about my work, as part of the library’s 15th "One City, One Story" series. I’m so honored to be taking part in this special event to recognize Vietnamese American history, arts, food, and culture with such esteemed creative thinkers. 

Founded in 1882, the Pasadena Central Library is listed on National Register of Historic sites. I can feel this history when I stare up at its Romanesque architecture, graze my hands upon its wood-paneled walls, rest upon its original quarter-sawn oak furniture, and tread quietly upon its Portuguese cork floors. This building is just magnificent, and I’m so pleased to have been invited to share my work here!

View "One City, One Story" brochure

Lifeline: A Solo Show by Trinh Mai  

Location: Oceanside Museum of Art, 704 Pier View Way, Oceanside, CA 92054
Show Dates: December 17, 2016 - March 5, 2017
Opening Reception: Saturday, January 14, 2017  6-8pm
Artist Talk + Documentary Screening (Presented by TAO): Wednesday, February 8, 2017   10:30am-12pm
A Time to Heal: A supplemental socially engaging creative project for our Veterans: Feb 13-19, 2017                                                    Sponsored in partnership with MiraCosta College

There are times in life when we are forced to bow in anguish before we are flushed with hope, and ushered into a moment of revelatory triumph.  This exhibition pays homage to the interlacing connections that shed light upon the sanctity, value, and purpose that gives meaning to life. These solemn works document the narratives that we might all share—these meandering threads of trial and virtue that span the human experience.  Whether tales of blood or bliss, herein lies the potential for a significant wisdom that holds true.  And as we stand broken but steadfast, we come face to face with the beauty that springs forth from these afflictions. In time, these knots loosen and call for us to rebraid them into an enduring strength.

Lifeline provides an intimate glimpse into the interconnectedness that bears witness to both life’s fragility and the weight that it tethers to our core.  These shared, lived, and inherited stories have been woven into this delicate collection of work, rewritten as a prayer for light upon the weary and heavy-laden.

Learn more about this exhibition and it related events or view photos

A Conversation with Vietnamese American Artist Trinh Mai 

Presented by the Institute of Arts & Humanities
Location: Cross Cultural Center, University of California, San Diego  (interactive campus map)
Art Talk: January 25, 2017  11:30 - 12:30pm with a reception to follow from 12:30 - 2pm

To kick off the pre-conference calendar of events leading up to The Militarism and Migration Conference, I have been invited by the UCSD Humanities Center to discuss how my artwork as helped open up the channel for intergenerational dialogue as a method to unearth history, how it speaks on the human condition and our collective need for healing. 

Wednesday, January 25, 2017  11:30am-12:45pm            
A Conversation with Vietnamese American Artist Trinh Mai. A presentation of work that touches on family history, war, identity, and healing

Thursday, February 9, 2017  3:30-5pm               
From the Land of Shadows: Remembering the Violence and the Violence of Remembering, Professor Khatharya Um, Ethnic Studies, UC Berkeley

Monday, April 10, 2017  3-5pm                    
Clowns in Palestine Cry: Facing Mundane Surveillance, Necropenology, and Militarism, Professor Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, Law School of Social Work and Social Welfare, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

A special thanks to Professor Yến Lê Espiritu for the invitation.

Read article in Prospect Journal of International Affairs at UCSD and view photos