Komentovaný sprievod výstavou Kým voda nezmyje breh so Zuzanou Flaškovou a Kvet Nguyễn

The first guided tour of the large-scale monographic exhibition Until Water Washes the World, led by the exhibition curator Zuzana Flašková, together with the exhibiting artist Kvet Nguyễn Nguyễn.
The monographic exhibition presents Kvet Nguyễn’s latest work. It is conceived as a visual reading of the chapters of the story of the Vietnamese diaspora on the territory of the former Czechoslovakia. From the time of post-war migration during the period of socialist internationalism, through the turning point of the Velvet Revolution, to the present day. By working critically and poetically with archives, Nguyễn creates a space for the revival of suppressed voices and narratives.

Nguyễn’s work often refers to textual and visual content found in official contemporary state archives and media, heavily tinged with racist and xenophobic narratives. This material, which challenges the false declaration of colonial innocence of the post-socialist countries of the Central European region, becomes a launching pad for her. By seeking out and presenting suppressed voices, it pays tribute to the resilience of marginalised communities and draws our attention to the power and necessity of collective as well as individual resistance.

The creative impulse behind Kvet Nguyễn is the search for a visual language that can capture the tension of collective trauma while translating this experience towards a vision of a better, more just future. Nguyễn programmatically seeks and also creates a space for dreaming, hope and the expression of desires that could serve as a catalyst for change.

This large-scale solo presentation connects work from recent years with new works created especially for the exhibition, including the film docu-fiction The Limits of Our Pain (2025). The exhibition also features the voices and words of educator Omar Beiruti, multidisciplinary artist Shivone Dominguez Blaschik, artivist Kim Kony, and musician Adela Mede. A special place will also be reserved for a series of staged portraits of members of the Vietnamese and Cuban diaspora in the Czech Republic in the 1980s in Libuše Jarcovjáková’s iconic photographs.

Kvet Nguyễn (Hoa Nguyễn Thị, *1995 Nové Zámky, SK) is a visual artist, PhD student at the Department of Photography and New Media at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bratislava. In her multidisciplinary work, she is primarily concerned with the theme of otherness in the context of post-socialist countries of Central and Eastern Europe, and wider geopolitical contexts. Using the method of auto-ethnographic theory, he reflects on issues of dual cultural identity through the categories of memory, migration, exile and desire. Nguyễn was awarded the Oskar Čepan Prize 2024 (together with Svetlana Fialová, Paula Malinowska and Tomáš Moravanský) and in 2024 she completed a residency at the Delfina Foundation in London. She is the author of the autobiographical essay Everything That Connects Us (2024). Her recent solo and group projects have been realized at Gallery 35m2 (Prague, CZ), tranzit.sk (Bratislava, SK), The Július Koller Society (Bratislava, SK), Kunsthalle Bratislava (SK), VCCA (Hanoi, VN) and Center A (Vancouver, CA).

Tickets are on sale online and at the Mirbach Palace box office. The number of seats is limited. You must arrive on time for the guided tour at 18.00.