Home Truths: Setting the Southeast Asian Art Scene Symposium

KV Duong (b.1980 Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam) is a London-based artist with a practice that spans painting, sculpture, and performance. Duong grew up in Canada to Chinese Vietnamese parents displaced by the Vietnam War. In his work he explores themes of migration and cultural assimilation, through a re-examination of his parents’ and his own experiences. War trauma and integration correlate with the artist’s coming out as a gay Asian man. Duong is a self-taught artist with a Masters in Structural Engineering. He is a recent recipient of funding from Arts Council of England, Jerwood Arts, and a-n. Duong presented his first institutional solo exhibition at the Migration Museum in spring 2022. He is scheduled for an exhibition at the Museum of the Home in spring 2023.

Arianna Mercado is a cultural worker from Manila currently based in London. She is the co-founder of Kiat Kiat Projects, a nomadic curatorial initiative. Arianna’s research interests have focused on comradeship and celebration in parallel to the materiality of power and geopolitical entanglements. She received her MFA in Curating (Distinction) from Goldsmiths, University of London, where she was awarded a fellowship within the same programme. Arianna currently works at Afterall, a contemporary arts research centre within the University of the Arts London.

Andrei Nikolai Pamintuan is based in the United Kingdom as a MA Researcher at the University of the Arts London: Central Saint Martins studying Applied Imagination in the Creative Industries. He continues to strengthen his advocacy for queer ethnic minorities, exploring the role of artistic expression, inclusion, and access to cultural activities and queer safe spaces. He is a director and cultural producer having worked both in the Philippines and the United States. He has taken on various roles in non-profit theatre, cultural organisations and as a freelance theatre practitioner. Andrei is the founder and festival director of Fringe Manila, a multi-genre international arts festival designed as a platform for local and international artists to present their works and provide audience access to new forms of work. As Creative Director of Pineapple Lab, he conceptualised and produced creative interventions that featured contemporary performances and interdisciplinary arts by emerging creatives and LGBTQIA+ artists in the Philippines.

He produced and co-hosted a podcast called Leave Yourself Outside, interviewing Asian contemporary artists in the region and in the diaspora. He designed the Anakabanwa Arts Residency Program in his home province of Pangasinan, where participating artists from the Philippines were tasked to respond to the social and environmental ecologies encountered during the residency, while giving back to the local communities by skill-sharing and conducting workshops. Early this summer, he was a facilitator for ‘Residency in The Cloud,’ a hybrid online/on-site artist in residency program presented with Taiwan’s Thinkers’ Studio and Dance Nucleus in Singapore. The residency attempted to tackle gender and sexuality issues in Southeast Asia through research and performance. Andrei co-wrote his first television series for a streaming platform, which is currently filming in Southeast Asia.

Duong Thuy Nguyen is a London-based visual artist and writer with bylines in Art and Market, Ocula Magazine ​and Plural Art. Nguyen worked as a researcher at the Hanoi Academy of Theatre and Cinema from 2014 to 2013. Since 2015, she has worked as a specialist and lecturer in the academy's international cooperation department. She began working at Mekong Cultural Hub as a Regional Representative in 2021. She currently studies under a scholarship MA in Fine Art and works as a Changemaker at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London.

Exploring the intersections between contemporary art and social responsibility, Nguyen works with practice-based research that focuses on reflecting social cohesion, community identity, and the interaction between humans and nature. Growing up in Hanoi, Vietnam, the artist would come face-to-face daily with problems endemic to the region, such as environmental destruction, gender and racial discrimination. Through her work, which combines social engagement and personal artistic practice, Nguyen explores the correlation between the climate crisis and cultural loss and shines a light on hidden narratives of colonial and industrial histories that have led to the climate-related displacement now commonplace within the country.

Gaynor Tutani (Art Adlib) is a curator, producer and writer who merges her various arts, culture, community and educational passions to produce exhibitions, events and commentaries on art and curating. Her speciality is in public programming – hosting music performances, talks, interviews and poetry programs, of which she extends as part of her practice as the Creative Programing Officer at the Museum of the Home. Working across the Creative Programmes and Collections team, as well as the Commercial and Campaigns division, her role centres on aligning the Museum’s programming within the core values and vision of engaging with the museum communities through fundraising and programming that interrogates critical societal issues through an artistic practice.

She is the Co-founder of EARTHworks [Artists], a curatorial duo that is dedicated to promoting creative collaborations through an intergenerational lens. Their work aims to raise awareness of the benefits of art and art making practices to health and well-being, alongside global issues such as climate change, equality and diversity.

Gaynor holds a BA in History and History of Ideas from Goldsmiths university of London, and has completed her MA in Museum Cultures and Curating at Birkbeck University of London, where she specialised in African art, difficult histories, and decolonial approaches.