Image: Con Gái Thần Nước Mê Chàng Đánh Cá – Con Gái Thần Nuớc Gặp Lại Idol (The Water God’s Daughter is in Love With the Fisherman – The Water God’s Daughter Meets Her Idol Again), by Jeet Zdũng
How do the characters we inherit continue to influence the way we understand gender, identity, and power today?
Join Major Books for a thought-provoking panel exploring how female archetypes, maiden, mother, monster, have evolved across time and culture. From traditional folklore and myth to modern storytelling, this conversation examines how narratives both reinforce and challenge the roles women are expected to inhabit.
Bringing together voices from academia and creative practice, the panel will unpack how women’s stories are being reimagined today and why revisiting these familiar figures matters now more than ever.
The panel will explore the evolution of female characters in folklore and their lasting influence on contemporary culture, inviting audiences to rethink familiar narratives and discover how storytelling can become a powerful tool for reshaping perspectives across generations and cultures.
Speakers:
Dr. Helga Luthersdottir (UCL Lecturer in Scandinavian Culture)
Lan Võ (ESRC-funded Women’s Studies Scholar)
Tuyết Vân Huỳnh (Producer, Tấm Cám R&D)
Moderated by Kim Trần (Publisher, Major Books)
This talk responds to the Echoing Whispers: Treasury of Vietnamese Folk Tales display at the Museum. The display is free to visit in The Hive during the Museum’s opening hours. A creative programme of talks and workshops runs alongside the display in June and July.
Lan Võ is an ESRC-funded researcher in Women’s Studies at the University of York, whose work explores gender, memory, and survival of war. She is co-translator of Treasury of Vietnamese Folk Tales: Volume 1, helping bring one of Vietnam’s definitive folk tale collections into English for new global audiences. Her interests include feminist approaches to folklore, cultural translation, and how traditional stories continue to shape contemporary ideas of identity, justice, and womanhood. She is passionate about building cultural bridges between Vietnam and the UK through scholarship, storytelling, and the arts.
Specialising in film, immersive storytelling, theatre, and multidisciplinary work, Tuyết Vân Huỳnh is a British Vietnamese-Chinese creative, dedicated to amplifying underrepresented voices. She champions East and Southeast Asian representation across the UK cultural sector through socially engaged, cross-cultural projects. Her recent work includes Star Nha Ease: Vietnamese Cinema, winner of the Vietnamese International Awards 2025 (Arts, Media and Entertainment), and the BFI-backed immersive project Consensus Gentium, winner of Best XR Experience at SXSW 2023. In 2026, she leads Treasury of Vietnamese Folk Tales: Tam Cám – Reimagining Vietnamese Folklore for the Stage, and the ESEA R.A.P Party with Inua Ellams, produces the BFI-supported mixed-reality installation #reaction, and is developing a bilingual cải lương children’s audiobook for 2027. Other works include Echo Land, Artist Manual Against Apartheid, and a permanent public Vietnamese Sculpture. Tuyet continues to merge creativity, technology, and social advocacy in her artistic practice.
Kim Trần is the co-founder, CEO, and publisher of Major Books, the London-based independent press dedicated to bringing Vietnamese literature to English-speaking readers through translation, thoughtful design, and cultural exchange. Under her leadership, Major Books has quickly gained recognition for championing underrepresented voices and reimagining how Vietnamese stories are presented on the global stage.
She also works with Coral Books, a Vietnam-based independent publisher specialising in translating major international works into Vietnamese, helping to build literary dialogue in both directions between Vietnam and the wider world.
Kim’s work bridges publishing, culture, and advocacy across the UK and Vietnam. In 2025, she was shortlisted for Leader of the Year at the FutureBook Awards, recognising her innovation and impact within the publishing industry.
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