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3:00 PM
Walking Through Transitions
Panel discussion|A talk about arts and ecologies
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Goethe-Institut Hanoi, Hanoi
- Price Register to participate
Spaces, landscapes, people, and the ecological systems around us are constantly shifting. The capacities of art, architecture, and culture to attune us to place, foster new forms of attention, and collectively imagine alternative futures are more vital than ever. Yet there remains a lack of public discussion focusing on the methods through which these practices engage with social and ecological transformation.
“Walking Through Transitions” convenes artist-curator Đặng Thùy Anh, artist-curator Đinh Thảo Linh, cultural practitioner Nguyễn Vũ Hải, and moderator-curator Linh Lê share the methods they have developed while working with a particular issue, environment, or community.
Rather than focusing on the outcomes of their projects, the conversation turns to the making of methods: why a particular approach was chosen, how it was developed, how it has been tested, and how it has evolved as it moved across different contexts.
Through diverse practices—from walking, field research, artist residencies, and community engagement to experimental toolkits—the gathering opens up a space to reflect on how methods can help us observe, listen to, and enter into dialogue with cities and places that are constantly in transition.
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“Walking Through Transitions” is a public programme within “Transient Ecologies”, an artistic and curatorial project initiated by Đặng Thùy Anh following her residency in Berlin as part of Ecological Futures – a project initiated by Goethe-Institut global and ARCH+.
Building upon the methods developed through the project's experimental toolkit, Transient Ecologies seeks to adapt and further explore these approaches within the context of Hanoi. The project is organised by Á Space in collaboration with Goethe-Institut Hanoi, with contributions from artists, researchers, and practitioners across diverse disciplines.
Speakers
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Đinh Thảo Linh (1993) is a multidisciplinary artist, curator, and producer based between Hòa Bình and Hà Nội, Việt Nam. Her practice is rooted in creating spaces - physical, temporal, and psychological - where individuals from diverse communities can come together in dialogue and expression.
Her works and curatorial projects have unfolded across various spaces, from the intimate corners of ba-bau AIR house at 82A Thợ Nhuộm (Hanoi) to larger contexts such as Thái Nguyên University (Vietnam, 2021), documenta fifteen (Kassel, Germany, 2022), the Vietnamese Women’s Museum (Hanoi, Vietnam, 2022), VIVA ExCon 2023 (Antique, Panay Island, the Philippines, 2023), Conflictorium (Ahmedabad, India, 2024), and Hanoi Children’s Palace (Hanoi, Vietnam, 2024), A Queer Museum (Goethe-Institut Hanoi, Hanoi, Vietnam, 2025). She was a recipient of the Prince Claus Seed Award in 2021.
Since 2024, Linh officially relocated to her hometown, Hòa Bình, deepening her focus on the landscapes of her childhood - particularly the Hòa Bình hydroelectric plant. Her long-term inquiry weaves together themes of labor landscapes (human landscapes), manmade natural environments, and the infrastructural imaginary of the electricity industry, shaping both her solo and collaborative works. -
Nguyễn Vũ Hải is a cultural practitioner whose work centers on questions of place, drawing on urban research and community development.
Born in a village on the outskirts of Hanoi and having worked with diverse ethnic communities across Vietnam, Hải is interested in both the ties and ruptures that shape relationships between people and land, material memory, and the histories of place. In his practice, he employs walking, collective activities, storytelling, and mapping as his primary modes of expression.
His notable projects include the walking journey “Dấu sông hồn phố” (River’s traces – city’s soul); the co-created stage work “Thổ địa” (Earth God); the role-playing game “KTT-ing"; and the essay “Hố cây sau bão, sân khấu của các khoảng trống đô thị” (Tree Pits after the Storm: The Stage of Urban Voids). He is currently researching Hanoi’s urban villages and developing a walking project situated within a site undergoing demolition and clearance. -
Đặng Thùy Anh is a visual artist currently living and working in Hanoi. She graduated from the Vietnam University of Fine Arts in 2019, majoring in Graphic Design. Since 2017, Thùy Anh has engaged more frequently in experimental artistic practice through various performance art events and explored different mediums such as installation, video, and conceptual approaches to art making. Her interests revolve around the connection between humans and nature, visual motifs that are stereotypically understood, and the impact of social prejudice on the conceptualization of gender. Thùy Anh often uses living organisms, natural resources, her own body, and her personal archives as materials in her art.
She was awarded the “Finest Artist Award 2022–2023” by Hanoi Grapevine and received the Dogma Prize in 2023. In 2024, she became a member of the Curatorial Board at Á Space – An Experimental Art Space.
Her solo exhibitions include: Silent Intimacy (The Factory Contemporary Arts Centre, Ho Chi Minh City, 2019) and Chợt Mộng Tan (Á Space, Hanoi, 2022).
Selected group exhibitions and performance art festivals include: Performance Art Giswil (Giswil, Switzerland,2025), Forgotten Specimen (Spinnerei, Leipzig, Germany, 2024), Nostalgia for the Future (Children’s Palace, Hanoi, 2024), Level 13A (InterContinental, Thailand, 2024), Koganecho Bazaar (Yokohama, Japan, 2024), Cement Park Festival (Shanghai, 2023), Assemblage: Me, my story and I (Dogma, Ho Chi Minh City, 2023), Swallow & Spit 1 & 2 (A+ Works of Art, Kuala Lumpur, 2023), Tái Nạm (Mơ Art Space, Hanoi, 2022), Morning – Noon – Afternoon – Night (Á Space, Hanoi, 2022), Month of Art Practice – MAP (Heritage Space, Hanoi, 2018), NIPAF Festival / IN:ACT (Nhà Sàn Collective, Hanoi, 2017, 2019, 2022), MoT Plus Performance Festival (MoT Plus, Ho Chi Minh City, 2019), Wu Wei Performance (Coda Culture, Singapore, 2020), Open Studio I, II & III (Á Space, Hanoi, 2018), and Emerging Artists 6 (Nhà Sàn Collective, Hanoi, 2018).
Moderator
Linh Lê
Linh Lê is an independent curator, writer, and researcher from Saigon, Vietnam. Her work investigates the changing landscapes and ecologies of Saigon and beyond under the pressures of modernisation and urbanisation, while exploring how post-socialist conditions in contemporary Vietnam have shaped both social reproduction and artistic production in recent decades. Since July 2024, she has been developing Đo Đạc, a site-responsive curatorial project examining the impact of forced resettlement in the Thủ Thiêm peninsula in Ho Chi Minh City. She is currently a member of the Curatorial Board at Á Space (Hanoi) and a research fellow for ArtsEquator’s Southeast Asian Arts Censorship Database. Linh served as A. Farm International Residency’s curator from July 2024 to December 2025 with support from Goethe Institut HCMC, previously she was a curator at Galerie Quynh.
From August 2026, Linh will pursue a Master’s in Curatorial Studies at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (NY), funded by the Fulbright Foreign Student Program.
Location
56-58-60 Nguyen-Thai-Hoc-Str., Ba Dinh
Hanoi
Vietnam