< Artists
Thu Van Tran
Working across a range of forms and materials, Thu Van Tran uses her own experience as a cultural outsider – a Vietnamese woman living in France – to explore physical and cultural displacement and history of colonialism, subjects that have become poignantly relevant in today’s climate.
View available works

Thu-Van Tran (b. 1979, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam) is a French-Vietnamese artist living and working in Paris. Her interdisciplinary practice encompasses sculpture, installation, photography, film, and drawing. Drawing from literature, history, and architecture, Tran explores themes of contamination, identity, and language. Her work often references the legacy of French colonialism in Vietnam, particularly the exploitation of rubber plantations by companies like Michelin.

Her exhibitions have been featured at institutions like MAMAC in Nice and the Palais de Tokyo in Paris. Tran's art invites reflection on the entangled histories of colonization, environmental degradation, and the resilience of nature.

Works

From Green to Orange
Thu Van Tran
In the Fall, in the Rise
Thu Van Tran
Arirang partition
Thu Van Tran
Les Couleurs du gris
Thu Van Tran
Nos Lumières (Cyclope)
Thu Van Tran
Novel without a title
Thu Van Tran
Peau blanche
Thu Van Tran
Traînée de poussière
Thu Van Tran
Overly forced gestures. From harvest to fight
Thu Van Tran
The Red Rubber
Thu Van Tran
Les couleurs du gris
Thu Van Tran
Colors of Grey
Thu Van Tran

Gallery exhibitions

toi et nous 2021
Mountains are like the bones of the earth. Water is its blood. 2017
We are this and that aren't we 2015
We live in the flicker 2012

Exhibitions

We live in the flicker
MAMAC, Nice (France)
2023
Before the Storm
Bourse de Commerce - Pinault Collection, Paris (France)
2023
Is it morning for you yet? 58th Carnegie International
Carnegie Museum of Art (CMOA), Pittsburgh (USA)
2022 - 2023
Reclaim the Earth
Palais de Tokyo, Paris (France)
2022
Thu Van Tran, Novel Without a Title
Kunsthaus Baselland, Basel (Switzerland)
2020
24h à Hanoi
Le CREDAC, Ivry-sur-Seine (France)
2019
Xe Đạp ơi
VCCA (Vincom Center for Contemporary Art) Hanoi (Vietnam)
2018 - 2019
Marcel Duchamp Prize
Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (France)
2018
VIVA ARTE VIVA
57th Biennale di Venezia, Venice (Italy)
2017
Echange de présents
Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin (Germany)
2016
La dix-huitième place
Centre d’Art Villa du Parc, Annemasse (France)
2013

Projects

Absences, mues et macules
Ignasi Aballí, Léa Belooussovitch, Marc Buchy, Lieven De Boeck, Hreinn Friðfinnsson, Ellen Harvey, Rinko Kawauchi, Nicolás Lamas, Benoît Maire, mountaincutters, Cornelia Parker, Claudio Parmiggiani, Benoit Platéus, Jorge Méndez Blake, Christopher Orr, Evariste Richer, Solène Rigou, José María Sicilia, Namsal Siedlecki, Thu Van Tran, Chaim van Luit, Xie Lei
Une saison en Enfer
Ignasi Aballí, Jorge Méndez Blake, Jordi Colomer, Nicolás Lamas, Thu Van Tran, Chaim van Luit, Delphine Coindet