Thuy N. D. Tran's Page

Thuy N. D. Tran is a PhD Candidate in the Department of History of Art and Architecture at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her extensive experience in community art activism and museum work has provided her opportunities to take fresh approaches to the often passive practice of art history. Her doctoral committee includes Dr. Laurie Monahan, Dr. Bruce Robertson and Dr. Bert Winther-Tamaki (UCI Visual Studies). Her teaching philosophy embraces interdisciplinary perspectives and her research focuses on primary sources as its inspiration. She received her MA in art history from Arizona State University (Committee: Dr. Nora A. Taylor, Dr. Claudia Brown and Dr. Claudia Mesch, 2007) and her BA in art history from the University of California, Los Angeles with dual minors in cultural anthropology and museum studies.

Her master's thesis focused on the art by Vietnamese American artist and film actor Long Nguyen, titled "Long Nguyen: Identity politics in art and cinema" (2007). This thesis is a case study of how cultural producers, audiences, communities and artists have negotiated identity politics pertaining to Vietnamese American art and cinema. Based on primary research and interviews, the thesis examines how presenters (curators, film directors, writers), the art receiver (audience) and the art producer (artist), cumulatively shape perceptions of ethnic identity. Long's involvement in museum exhibitions and films during the last two decades is discussed in order to understand how each mode of presentation has framed Asian American and Vietnamese American identity. This thesis argues for a return to important and still relevant concepts, such as "identity," "culture," and "race," once outmoded in the 1990s.

Her most recent project was curating Marvelous Metaphors: Art as Visual Poetry (8/2011 - 11/2011) for the Vietnamese American Arts and Letters Association (VAALA, www.vaala.org). The exhibition encourages audiences to read visual art in the same way as poetry—through the contemplation of visual metaphors that play with interpretive possibilities. Marvelous Metaphors offered a wide array of artistic media including photo-works, paintings on canvas, fiber arts, ceramics, inks on paper, drawings, book-art, sculptures and other mixed media. The artists selected for this exhibition (Van Tran, Dao Strom, Christine Nguyen, Tammy Nguyen, Trinh Mai and Trinh Ponce) are very diverse in subjectivity and technical approach; however what they all share in common are works that invite viewers to delve into the many overlays of meaning.

She also curated VAWAFest: Art Exhibition showcasing the works of twelve contemporary Vietnamese American women artists (2004). She was a participating artist and curator for The Difference Between Us exhibition on racism in America at UCLA (2000). She has also worked on various art exhibitions as curatorial intern for Phoenix Art Museum (2003), as a Getty curatorial intern for UCLA/Armand Hammer Museum of Art and Cultural Center (1998) and as a Getty educational intern for Pacific Asia Museum (1996).

She also has a long volunteering history as officer for the Vietnamese Student Union (VSU) and the Vietnamese Language & Culture (VNLC) organizations at UCLA -- from Tet Festival Coordinator (1997-1998), to Language Tutorial Coordinator (1998-1999), to Director of VNLC (1999-2000). Her other volunteering experience also involved Venice Art Walk (1999), Lotus Festival at Echo Park (1996), UCLA Vietnamese American Student Conference (1997), Asian Pacific American Heritage Month Festival at UCLA (1997), and as Vietnamese Reaching Out to Aid the Community Project of UCLA (1996-1998) and was on the Board of Directors for the Vietnamese American Arts and Letters Association (2006-2008).