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DVAN Advisory Board member Viet Le will be speaking at Asian American Artists in California , a symposium presented by the UCLA Asian American Studies Center and the Hammer Museum, Saturday, March 14, 2009, from 9:00am - 1:00pm at the Armand Hammer Museum. This event is free and open to the public. RSVP is requested. Please call (310) 825-2974 or
e-mail aascrsvp@aasc.ucla.edu by March 13, 2009.




This symposium will celebrate the publication of the landmark Asian American Art: A History, 1850-1970, edited by Gordon H. Chang, Mark Johnson, and Paul Karlstrom, as well as present the dynamic work of three present-day artists in southern California. Asian American Art: A History is the first comprehensive study of more than 150 early artists in the United States before 1970. Artists of Asian ancestry have received little historical attention, even though many of them received wide critical acclaim during their productive years. This pioneering work recovers the impressive artistic production of numerous Asian Americans, and brings to light their extraordinary range of vision and media. Amazon.com is giving a 34% discount (only $26.37 instead of $39.95) AND free shipping for this book. Purchase ahead for the best deal.

On one panel, contemporary artists Reanne Estrada, Yong Soon Min, and Viet Le discuss their work within a transnational context. Reanne Estrada reflects on the Galleon Trade project, a series of exhibitions and programs highlighting the linkages among the Philippines, Mexico and California. Yong Soon Min-decolonial art activist and scholar-will speak about her projects, including "transPOP: Korea Viet Nam Remix," co-curated with Viet Le, an artist and creative writer who examines memory, AIDS and representation in Southeast Asia and its diasporas. Download the full press release.

Vietnamese Americans are far from the only people living in lands distant from their countries of origin or heritage. There are many other people with whom Vietnamese Americans may not share a common ancestry, but with whom they share common experiences of civil war, revolution, persecution, migration, exile, loss, displacement, cultural adjustment, and global citizenship. These shared experiences are important to Vietnamese American literature and art, and on February 5, 2009, DVAN Executive Director Isabelle Thuy Pelaud will speak about them with other artists and critics at the 2nd Iranian Literary Arts Festival.

The roundtable in which Isabelle will participate is "30 Years of Belonging." Tickets are free!

DVAN is proud to help sponsor transPOP: Korea Vietnam Remix. A rare opportunity to view cutting-edge contemporary art by critically acclaimed artists from three countries whose works explore representations of modernity and popular culture, transPOP features 16 artists from Vietnam and Korea and their respective diasporas in the United States.



Attend one or all of the four special, upcoming events that are a part of transPOP:

1. Curators’ Tour, Saturday, Jan. 31, 2p, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts :: 701 Mission Street, San Francisco, 94103-3138 • Free w/ Gallery Admission
general programs
tickets for tour

2. Short Film & Video Screening, Saturday, Jan. 31, 8.30-11.30p (looping), Screening Room, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts • FREE

Part of What’s the Big Idea? Night Party, 9p-midnight: link

3. Artists InSight - transPOP Artists In Conversation, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
Friday, Feb. 13, 6:30p • Screening Room/Galleries • Free w/ Gallery Admission

transPop: Korea Vietnam Remix exhibition artists Lan Thao Lam and Sowon Kwon join curators Viet Le and Yong Soon Min in conversation about their work, the creative process, and how they navigate their relationship to Vietnam, Korea, and the United States.

4. transPOP Symposium, Saturday, Feb. 14, 10a-5p, University of California, Berkeley, Institute of East Asian Studies Conference Room :: 2223 Fulton Street, 6th Floor, Berkeley, CA 94720 • FREE

Institute of East Asian Studies website (host & symposium details)
YBCA (schedule)

DVAN recently staged its first major event, Vietnamese Poets of the Diaspora, as part of the San Francisco International Poetry Festival. This highly successful event featured poets Mong Lan, Anh Hoa, Bao Phi, lê thi diem thúy, Linh Dinh, and Truong Tran, with DVAN's Executive Director Isabelle Thuy Pelaud as the master of ceremonies. Read more about this event in English or in Vietnamese. Photos from this evening can be seen here.



DVAN Executive Director Isabelle Thuy Pelaud and the six writers featured at DVAN's "Vietnamese Poets of the Diaspora" on November 8, 2008. Photo courtesy of Thai Anh Nguyen-Khoa.

About the writers:

Ánh Hoà:
A graduate of Mills College with a MFA in Creative Writing, she was awarded the Mary Merritt Henry Prize in Poetry and the Ardella Mills Literary Composition Prize in Creative Non-Fiction. Her work has been published in many literary journals. She has performed at The Kearny Street Workshop, among others.

Mộng Lan:
A poet, writer, painter, photographer and tango dance, she graduated with a MFA from the University of Arizona. She received a Wallace E. Stegner Fellowship in poetry at Stanford University and a Fulbright Scholarship to Việt Nam. Her work has been anthologized in Best American Poetry and published in various literary magazines. (website)

lê thi diem thúy:
Born in Phan Thiết, Việt Nam, she and her father left the country in 1978 by boat, eventually settling in Southern California. Her first novel, The Gangster We Are All Looking For, was published to great acclaim in 2003; she is at work on her second book. (website)

Bảo Phi:
He has been a performing poet since 1991 and a two-time Minnesota Grand Slam champion and a National Poetry Slam finalist. He appeared on HBO’S Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry. His work has appeared in the 2006 Best American Poetry anthology. (website)

Linh Đinh:
Born in Việt Nam in 1963, he came to the United States in 1975 and sojourned in Việt Nam in 2005. He has lived in Italy and England and is the author of two collections of stories, Fake House and Blood and Soap, and four books of poems. His novel, Love Like Hate, will be release in 2009 by Seven Stories Press. (website)

Trường Trần:
A poet and visual artist, his published work include The Book of Perception, Placing the Accents, and dust and conscience (winner of the 2000 San Francisco Poetry Center Book Prize). He teaches at San Francisco State University and Mills College. (website)