Tran Vu Arts has been certified as a Minority Business Enterprise (MBE), Woman Business Enterprise (WBE), and Small Local Business Enterprise (SLBE) with the
City of Boston’s Supplier Diversity Program!
My Purpose & Mission
I am an artist and cultural organizer whose work focuses on highlighting stories of migration, displacement, and resilience through multimedia projects that engage and empower marginalized communities. My mission is to connect diverse cultures and inspire transformative social change by merging artistic expression with community activism.
About Me
My philosophy: transnational, interdisciplinary and storytelling
Photo by Harold Than
I am a transnational, interdisciplinary, multi-generational creator and storyteller. I am an artist and strategic consultant whose work bridges socio-cultural advocacy with strategic and sustainable impact.
My approach is influenced and informed by my Vietnamese American heritage, organizing experience and understanding of the BIPOC and AAPI communities.
My thematic work inquires about the intersection of familial connections, rituals, and social justice. I aim to create thought-provoking art installations, pieces, frameworks, and discourse where communities can have a brave and open space to connect for a common purpose.
My Story
Straddling the line between being American and a marginalized community member, I embrace the responsibility to facilitate work that contributes positively to local and global communities.
I was born in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Viet Nam and raised in Dorchester, Boston. Growing up working-class, I experienced first-hand the realities of living as a refugee and immigrant in America.
In my pursuit of equity and equality, I continuously explores themes of identity, justice, belonging, and power. I see the arts as portals into realms of re-imaginations pivotal to restructuring the status quo and speaking truth to power.
Equipped with a BA in Ethnic Studies and Visual Arts from Brown University and my MA in Arts and Politics from NYU Tisch School of the Arts, I continued my pursuit of a compassionate understanding of social advocacy. I obtained training from the Center for Third World Organizing’s Movement Activist Apprenticeship Program (MAAP) as well as the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC), Hai Bà Trưng School Organizing, Undoing Racism®, and AARW’s Dorchester Organizing and Training Initiative (DOT-I).
Throughout my academic and social advocacy career, I sought to organize and facilitate activism through storytelling and the arts in all its forms while empowering communities through organizing.
Photo: Virginia Sutherland
My Artist Statement
I am a storyteller, connector and an interpreter. My work evokes themes of familial ties, memories, and rituals amongst issues of social justice and intersectionality. As a 1.5-generation Vietnamese American interdisciplinary artist and organizer, I am passionate in creating spaces and platforms for cross-cultural storytelling and critical discourse that challenge inequity. I thread my social practice through photography, painting, and sculpture so that my art can resonate and engage audiences with intentionality. My experiences as a person of color working with communities inside, outside and beyond the United States have informed my framing of realities, visions and possibilities. My deepest influences include my family and friends as well as fellow artists and changemakers from the past, present, and beyond.
As a creative committed to communities and social justice, my passion and background on projects and initiatives have equipped me in being an effective lead artist in trust-based partnerships. I am driven to co-create, support and protect the stories and experiences with communities of color, refugees and immigrants. Through active participation and holistic facilitation, I aim to offer new modes of resistance to interrogate and counteract the dominant narrative. I am particularly invested in the intersections of storytelling, cultures, and activism, spotlighting those who are willing to step out of bounds to advance social change. In my own healing journey, I am continuously exploring and unpacking themes of identity, justice, belonging, and power. The arts serve as portals into realms of re-imaginations pivotal to restructuring the status quo and speaking truth to power. I embrace my responsibility to facilitate work that contributes positively to my local and global community.
My mind is pondering
My heart is Vietnamese
My soul is an artist
My spirit is a healer
My CV
EDUCATION
2020 Executive Certificate Art & Cultural Heritage Law, Georgetown Law Center, DC
2019 Certificate Nonprofit Management and Leadership, Tufts University & INP, Boston, MA 2013 MA New York University Tisch School of the Arts, Arts & Politics, New York, NY
2010 BA Brown University, Ethnic Studies & Visual Arts, Providence, RI
2009 Rhode Island School of Design, Illustration, Providence, RI
2009 Pont-Aven School of Contemporary Art, Painting, Pont-Aven, France
2008 Temple University, Photography, Rome, Italy
ARTS ADMINISTRATIVE EXPERIENCE
2021-2022 Director of Strategic Initiatives, Silkroad, Cambridge, MA 2017-2021 Director of New Voices, Association of Independents in Radio (AIR), Boston, MA
2019-2020 Core Member Consultant, ArtPlace America’s Massachusetts Assembly, MA 2015-16 Volunteer, Tịnh Trúc Gia, Toa Tàu, LIN Center, Hue & Hồ Chí Minh City, Vietnam
2014-15 Project Coordinator, WGBH American Experience, Boston, MA
2014 & 2015 Kitchen Manager, Burning Man’s Shamandome Camp, Black Rock City, NV
2013 Exhibitions & Design intern, Paul Chan Studio, New York, NY
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
2020-22 Asian Women in US Course, Asian American Studies Adjunct, UMass Boston, MA
2020-21 Social & Digital Marketing, Asset for Artists, MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA
2020 Online Series for Artists, CultureHouse & CambridgeArts, Virtual
2020 Creative Resiliency, WBUR’s The ARTery Living Room Livestream, Virtual
2020 Financial Literacy for Artists Workshop, Arts & Public Policy, NYU Tisch, Virtual
2013 Summer Public Art Teaching Artist, Mekong NYC, Bronx, NY 2013 Photo Teaching Artist, NYU Tisch Photo & Imaging Future Imagemakers, NYC, NY
RESIDENCY + FELLOWSHIP
2023 Foundation House Residency, Greenwich, CT 2022 Surf Point Foundation Residency, York, ME
2018-2021 Stable Ground Boston Residency, Northeastern Law Lab, Boston, MA
2017-2020 Asset for Artists Grantee & Residency, MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA
2019 Creative Community Fellow (CCF), National Arts Strategies, New England 2019 The Creative Entrepreneur Fellow, Arts & Business Council of Greater Boston, MA
2016-18 Critical Collaborations Fellow, NYU’s Global Institute, International
2018 Live Arts Boston (LAB), The Boston Foundation, Boston, MA
2018 Artist Resident, Boston Center for the Arts, Boston, MA
2017 Creative City Art Artist, New England Foundation for the Arts, Boston, MA
2017 Artisan’s Asylum Grant, Somerville, MA
2016 Tịnh Trúc Gia Arts Residency, Huế, Vietnam
2014-15 Design for Social Intervention’s Fairmount Cultural Fellowship, Roxbury, MA
2013-14 Emerging Leaders of New York Arts (ELNYA) Fellowship, New York, NY
2013-14 Imagining America PAGE Fellowship, New York, NY
2014 Old Furnace Residency, Harrisonburg, VA
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2018 Spirits | Vietnam Art, Home.stead Bakery Café, Dorchester, MA
2018 Lunar New Year, Boston Children’s Museum, Boston, MA
2017 Huế Pilgrimage, Boston Neighborhood Network, Boston, MA
2017 Pilgrimage to Huế, Fields Corner Public Library, Dorchester, MA
2013 Alumni Exhibition, Steppingstone Foundation Class, Boston, MA
2010 Gia Đình: Talk Stories, Brown’s List Art Center, Providence, RI
2009 Glimpse of Migrant Workers, Brown List Art Center, Providence, RI
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2021 Connecting Perspectives, The Social Distancing Festival, Virtual 2021 ACCESS: Art, Boston Center for the Arts, Virtual 2020 Dot NOW, UMass-Boston University Hall Gallery, Boston, MA 2019 YELLOW, Athens Institute of Contemporary Art, Athens, GA 2019 No Spectators: Art of Burning Man, Cincinnati Art Museum, OH 2019 Migration, Umbrella Arts Center, Concord, MA
2018 Perform Your Feminism(s), Lamont Gallery, Boston, MA
2018 Art on the Marquee: Round 25, Boston, MA
2018 Art on the Marquee: Round 24, Boston, MA
2016 Winter Solstice Opening, 391 Dudley Gallery, Roxbury, MA
2015 Fairmont Lab Opening, Fairmont Innovation Lab, Roxbury, MA
2014 (1) Day They Will: Arts Activism Exhibition, Kimmel Center, NYC, NY
2010 Identities, Brown University’s List Center, Providence, RI
2009 Contagious, Brown RISD Hillel Gallery Project, Providence, RI
2008 Finale, Pont-Aven School of Contemporary Art, Pont-Aven, France
PERMANENT COLLECTION
South Cove Community Health Center, Boston, MA
Private Collection, Cambridge, MA Private Collection, Dorchester, MA
PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIPS & AFFILIATIONS
Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA) Association of Independents in Radio (AIR) National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) Massachusetts New England Sculptures Association (NESA) The Network of Arts Administrators of Color (NAAC) Boston Vietnam Studies Group (VSG)
My Contributions
My philosophy: equity, inclusion and justice.
Photo by Linh Pham
In 2019, I was the National Arts Strategies Creative Communities Fellow and featured as one of the WBUR Artery 25, a series highlighting millennials of color making an impact in the Boston arts scene.
I have collaborated with ArtPlace America, the Boston Children’s Museum, MASS MoCA Assets for Artists, Heritage Museums and Gardens. I teach workshops on storytelling, digital marketing, financial literacy, and housing strategies for artists, and have taught in the Future Imagemakers program at NYU’s Tisch Department of Photography.
Most recently, I was an adjunct faculty teaching an Asian American Studies course titled “Asian Women in the United States” at the University of Massachusetts Boston. I aim to continue mindful contributions to our communities by serving as a board member of the National Federation of Community Broadcasters (NFCB) and a funding panel with the Haymarket People’s Fund (HPF).