My research informs and is informed by my art, community work, and personal history. My art practice and community work transform my research. I create and iterate.

MIS-READING | A feminist library of arts and community work. >

CURRENT PROJECTS

FAMILY NOTES: A Conversation Toolkit

I introduce “Family Notes” Project and read Ba/Father 23:03 at LA Review of Books 2019

Family Notes is a conversation toolkit to help facilitate intergenerational, multilingual conversations between loved ones. Rather than focus on genealogy and the concretizing of capital ‘H’ History, Family Notes welcomes the complexity of language and storytelling: non-linear, mythical-folkloric, creative, iterative, and collaborative. Family Notes Toolkit will include a 1) field notes style booklet, 2) an accompanying website for resources, and 3) ideas and examples of creative projects sparked by the conversations.

While writing and researching Family Notes, I will share resources, working chapters, and media here at my arts and community website with posts tagged #FamilyNotes. Follow along there or email your ideas and suggestions to: misreadingart@gmail.com

MẸ, TRANSLATED

“Mẹ, Translated” is a mixed-media art project on love, language, memory and everything lost in translation in between.

BIBO-XINHXICH

Xinh

Xich

Translation is an interpretive act. Based on context, gestures, tone-room-feeling of an uttered word, we create meaning. That meaning of the word changes each time we attempt to explain it. New iterations, contexts, interpretations, and feelings attach to the word, breathing new life and meaning.

“The Undeniable Force of Khó Khăn” Film: A film on the bittersweet nature of love, language, and memory.

Directed, Produced, Edited, Words by Cindy Nguyen from the original essay
Cinematography by Eric Kim

Premiered at the Viet Film Festival 2019 >

Read Cindy Nguyen’s Open Letter Response >

See all MIS-READING projects

Public Talks and Community Work

Artist Talkback with Susan Lieu on her show “140LBS” (Boston, 2019)

My film “The Undeniable Force of Khó Khăn” premiere and Q& A at Viet Film Fest (Orange County, 2019)

Translating Across Time and Space: Film Screening, Artist Talk, and Creative Translation Activity at Harvard

Translating Across Time and Space Talk and Workshop at Harvard 2020

Selected Publications, Film Premieres, and Public Readings

Photography and Film Soundscape Publication as Featured Cover for Lantern Review (Forthcoming, 2020)
Audio Poemscape “Flicker”, LA Review of Books Publab (2019)
Essay “Confessions of a Vietnamese Refugee” and Film poetry “Liberation Time”, Diacritics (2019)
Film “The Undeniable Force of Khó Khăn” California Premiere at Viet Film Festival (2019) and Artist Talkback, published Diacritics (2018)
Essay “An Asian American’s Language of Mental Health,” If-Me.org mental health non-profit and open source project (2018)
“Train/Xe lửa” Bi-lingual poetry on History, Memory, and Language published in independent Vietnamese and transpacific publisher AJAR PRESS, issue 5, song song || para||el, Fall (2017)
Essay The Slow Undoing of Velcro Shoes (2017) | Visual publication on “The Thirsty” (2017)
Essay How I had a feminist Asian American wedding (2016)

Recent Talks

On Slowness: A World Building Provocation for Teaching and Research

In the past, I was frustrated by how slow my work moved. I was impatient that my critical inquiry, confusion, curiosity forced me to constantly revisit sources, translations, historical contexts. Market pressures to publish and produce (a talk, an article, a dissertation, a book, teaching, digital resources) with the promise of professional security perpetuated a…

The Politics of ‘Good Reading’: Libraries and the Public in Late Colonial Vietnam Talk at Yale

Last spring I was invited to give a virtual talk at Yale’s Southeast Asia Seminar. It was an honor to present a portion of my manuscript Misreading at the Yale seminar, and to be part of the vibrant Q&A, which due to its virtual format spanned institutions and continents. Thank you to Quan Tran for…

Teaching Resources

[TEACHING] On Digital Teaching During and After COVID-19

On November 9, 2020 I was invited to speak on the topic of digital teaching as part of the History Department, Center for Digital Scholarship, and 21st Century PhD Series at Brown University. The talk was well attended on Zoom from faculty, staff, and students from all over campus. I talk through concrete activities, tools,…

Translating Across Time and Space: Film Screening, Artist Talk, and Creative Translation Activity at Harvard

I was invited to speak at an innovative event on translation and creative expression organized by the scholar Catherine H. Nguyen from the Committee on Degrees in History and Literature and the Committee on Ethnicity, Migration, and Rights at Harvard University. Together with poet-scholar Quan Tran, we shared our scholarship and arts practice. I spoke…

Why Study the History of Colonial Indochina? Talk at Middlesex Community College 2020

https://youtu.be/WtddoZpRCMU I recently delivered a talk to 150 college students at Middlesex college through the Asian Studies Development Program. I was encouraged to prepare a talk which spoke to diverse students who might not have a background on Asian history. In preparing for the talk, I took a long time reflecting on the simple question,…