Dat VU is a Vietnamese photo artist born in Saigon in 1991. He lived and studied abroad for about 10 years before returning to Vietnam in 2016. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree with High Honors in Art Studio from Wesleyan University (Middletown, CT, USA) in 2015. Having spent a large part of his formative years abroad, he relies on photography as a medium to explore, to acclimatize with each new environment, and to build his syncretic identity. Through the medium, he grapples with the contexts and concepts that situate himself: masculinity, sexuality and nationalism.
He develops his visual language through observing suspended human behaviors in public and private spheres, and about vernacular spaces in transition. In his work, he has become concerned with the idea of representation, intervention and performativity. In turn, his photographic practice plays with different modes of decontextualization and deconstruction: constructing narratives through combining the found and the staged.
Good morning, midnight (2019) is part of a collaboration with artist Trương Quế Chi during a residency in France, during which Vu explores the poetic potentials of different materials: a site’s architecture as a sculpture of functions that not only contains but choreographs the installations using light and sound. He seeks to expand his visual vocabulary across mediums while maintaining an ontological awareness and formal aspects. It is an attempt to push his practice in a direction that suspends the audience’s disbelief through a dialect about social norms.
Vũ Tiến Đạt từng học tập tại Singapore và Mỹ trong suốt 10 năm và trở về Việt Nam vào năm 2016.
Các sáng tác nghệ thuật của anh khai thác các ý tưởng của tính biểu thị, của sự tác động và vận hành thông qua những vùng địa lý, lịch sử và chính trị khác nhau, Anh phát triển ngôn từ của hình ảnh xoay quanh các nghiên cứu về không gian và cử chỉ của cơ thể, cách cư xử và mối quan hệ giữa con người. Đồng thời, anh cũng tiến hành phối hợp nhiều phương thức khác cùng với nhiếp ảnh như nghệ thuật sắp đặt, biểu diễn và video.
For any inquiries, please contact Dat through the email below
GRANTS & AWARDS
2020 - IdeasCity Fellowship - Solidarity with Nature, Singapore
2019 - Programme Réciprocité Residency, Paris, France
2017 - Materialize Exhibition Grant - The Factory Contemporary Arts Center, HCM, Vietnam
2016 - Mortimer Hays-Brandeis Traveling Fellowship
2014 - Visualizing the Environment Grant - Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT
2010 - Travel Photography Scholarship, World Nomads & National Geographic, Bhutan
2008 - Photo Clinic, Canon, South Island, New Zealand
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2019 - De toutes les couleurs, La Plantation, Photo Phnom Penh Festival, Cambodia
2018 -‘round The Exit Line, Tributary Projects, Canberra, Australia
2017 - Muted Conversations, The Factory Contemporary Arts Center, Saigon, Vietnam
2015 - Glass Closet, Secret Egg, Zilkha Gallery, CT, USA
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2018 - ICI Vietnam Festival, FOYER VIETNAM, Paris, France
2018 - Les villes invisibles, l’Etoile, Paris and Metaxu, Toulon, France
2016 - Constructions of Disquiet, Golden West Community Art Gallery, CA, USA