Diane Severin Nguyen (b. 1990, USA) is a visual artist and filmmaker working in photography, video, and installation to explore displacement, collective memory and the role of pop culture in politics. Her work synthesizes seemingly divergent cultural materials––Vietnamese folk poetry, anti-war anthems, and K-Pop––to explore the way culture and memory operate as tools of empire, consolidating national identity around oft-nostalgic music and film. Her videos, such as In Her Time, (Iris’s Version) (2024), If Revolution Is A Sickness (2021), andTyrant Star (2019), subvert these symbols into satire by mimicking the dissonance between popular and elite, real and fake, indifference and sympathy.

Nguyen has exhibited her work internationally with recent solo exhibitions at Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver (2024); Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai (2023); SculptureCenter, New York (2022); Renaissance Society, Chicago (2022); Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston (2022); and Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris (2023). Nguyen’s films have been screened at New York Film Festival, New York; IFFR, Rotterdam; Berlinale, Berlin; and Yebisu Festival, Tokyo. Recent group exhibitions include the 2024 Whitney Biennial, the Schinkel Pavilion, Berlin (2023), the 58th Carnegie International, Pittsburgh (2022–2023); GHOST 2565 Triennial, Bangkok (2022); Greater New York 2021 at MoMA PS1 (2021); Made in LA Hammer Museum and The Huntington (2020–2021); and 13th Shanghai Biennale (2021).Nguyen earned her MFA from Bard University in 2020 and her BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2013. She is the recipient of the 2023 Arison Artadia Award, and the 2023 Guggenheim Fellowship. She currently lives and works in New York