Minh Ngọc Nguyễn & Anna Mustonen

In this episode, we present a conversation between Danish/Vietnamese artist Minh Ngọc Nguyễn and Anna Mustonen, Chief Curator at Kiasma in Finland - which currently holds four of Nguyễn’s works in its collection. Recorded live during the CHART 2025 Talks Programme, they explored Nguyễn’s artistic practice, which began in commercial photography before moving into contemporary art.

Nguyễn reflected on his fascination with photography’s ability to shape how we perceive culture and identity. The conversation addressed representations of Southeast Asian and Vietnamese identity in Western media, where imagery has often been oversimplified, exoticised, or fetishised, shaping both public perception and lived experience. He spoke about using photography to process and challenge these visual histories, taking ownership of such imagery and redefining it on his own terms as part of building a new visual lexicon.