Australian Artist Mai Nguyen-Long shines at 2022 Berlin Biennale

Published by: Heath | 24-Jun-2022
From Bulli to Berlin, Australian artist Mai Nguyen-Long takes her intriguing contemporary work to the international art stage.
Its a long way from her studio on the south coast of NSW, Australia, to the international stage of the 12th Berlin Biennale, but its where you will currently find the complex hand-shaped ceramics and intriguing multi-glass installation works of Australian artist, Mai Nguyen-Long.

Nguyen-Long was selected by Biennale curator Kader Attia and his team to feature at the 2022 festival alongside 82 international artists and collectives, all tasked to address themes such as global capitalism and de-colonialism.

Navigating life and the art world as an Australian/Vietnamese woman, Mai’s narrative explores layered complexities of identity, cultural dis/connection, the deeply personal, psychological, emotional, ritual and spiritual. Nguyen-Long has recently reconnected with her Vietnamese heritage and its rich cultural traditions aligning language, research and ceramic making to inform her new work and current PhD studies.

Mai's PhD work, or part thereof, "Vomit Girl Beyond Diasporic Trauma: Interconnecting Contemporary Art and Folkloric Practices in Vietnam," is being shown as, 'Vomit Girl (Berlin Cluster) 2022' at KW Institute for Contemporary Art and her multiple glass jar installation, 'Specimen (Permeate) 2022', at Akademie der Künste, Hanseatenweg. This second installation with its used glass household jars filled with found objects, and organic matter, eerily recalls images of organs labelled and stored in glass hospital jars. Both works evoke the Agent Orange disaster that continues to haunt many lives.

Following her commitments in Berlin, Nguyen-Long will travel to Documenta 15 (Kassel, Germany) and the Venice Biennale (Italy) before returning to Australia early July, where is is preparing for her next exhibition at Sydney's Art Atrium, 08-22 October 2022.

The 12th Berlin Biennale takes place across multiple venues in Berlin, from 11 June – 18 September.

Newsletter Sign Up

Join Our Growing Community

ART NEWS PORTAL is a global crowd sourced art news feed.
Everyone is welcome to share their art and culture related news.