Thursday in Residence with Tam Nguyen
Writing Against Mastery

Every first Thursday of each month, from 7 to 8 pm, a writer in residence opens a window on his or her work, universe and motives, in a free form of intervention. An hour of carte blanche to share, followed by a drink.

Tam Nguyen’s preoccupation with art historical methods gave rise to his/their desire to explore narratives outside of discourses in Vietnamese arts that center around wartime trauma and postcolonial politics. The first chapter of their multidisciplinary project Prosaic Trānsquīlus is what he/they considers a “parasitic publication” in an academic journal, for it was constructed like a research article of art history but does not contain any argument or serve any academic purposes. In this Thursday in residence, Tam will talk about the possibilities of “useless scholarship,” in which academic writings are subject to intentional misusages, and how his/their practice as a whole refuses to settle among the myriad of masterful conventions in the creative world. An invitation to think about the relationship between artmaking and text-making, as well as the different ways to expand creative spaces through experimental practices at large.