Vietnam Art Collection Expands to Shanghai

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Vietnam Art Collection, a residency programme founded in New York and based in Hanoi, has launched its Shanghai branch.

Opened on 7 December, VAC Shanghai aims to foster networks and intellectual exchange within the city’s developed art scene. It offers exhibitions, educational programmes, and short-term residencies for emerging Vietnamese artists.

Situated in a creative park with roots in an 1876 logistical site near a historic port central to Cold War-era exports, VAC Shanghai opened with the group exhibition A Beginning: Launching VAC Shanghai (8 December 2024–5 January 2025), featuring six artists from its Hanoi residency.

Highlights include collaborative artefacts by Saigon-based Mai Ta and Mr.Bambii from Ho Chi Minh City, and Trịnh Cam Nhi’s painting series ‘Hanoi, 06 2024’ (2024), chronicling her correspondence with collaborator Ha Ninh Pham. The result is somewhat reminiscent of the surrealist game Exquisite Corpse. According to VAC’s Shanghai-born director Sophie Huang, these works exemplify the organisation’s mission to support ‘unrealised projects and nurture artistic collaborations’.

During the opening, VAC member and researcher A. Nguyen recreated Vietnam’s street-side iced tea culture, inviting Shanghai audiences to engage with Vietnamese artists through literature and specially crafted beverages. The project highlighted Nam Cao, a 20th-century realist writer often compared to Lu Xun in Shanghai for their shared Left-wing legacy. Participants were served a selection of herbal teas and cocktails inspired by Cao’s short stories, each tailored to their survey responses.

Founded by Chinese-American collector Muchun Niu and initially centred on 20th-century Vietnamese art, VAC has ventured into contemporary practices and attempts to tap into Hanoi’s art scene, citing its local vibrancy with underdeveloped institutional support. The organisation introduced its research programmes in early 2023 with an interest ‘not to follow given rules while staying open to new potentialities’, as Huang described.

Currently, its Shanghai venue is working to replicate the residency model of its Hanoi base, promising to become a rare Shanghai hub for Southeast Asian art and production-focused artist residencies. Although venues like Ota Fine Arts occasionally showcase artists from the Southeast Asian region and Rockbund Art Museum runs the annual Curatorial Practices in Asia public programme, there are currently few platforms supporting dialogue between the local scene and Southeast Asia. —[O]

Main image: Exhibition view: A Beginning: Launching VAC Shanghai, VAC Shanghai (8 December 2024–5 January 2025). Courtesy VAC. Photo: Zhenhong Xu.