Mila Zuo

One Saturday each month, CAG invites a guest host to lead walkthroughs of our current exhibitions, offering their insights and response to the works on view. This April, we welcome Mila Zuo to speak on the work of Diane Severin Nguyen.

### Accessibility
ASL interpretation is available on request. Requests can be accommodated up to 5 days in advance. Please contact [learning@cagvancouver.org](mailto:learning@cagvancouver.org) to book or for more information.

### RSVP
No advance registration required.

### Biography
Mila Zuo is an associate professor in the Department of Theatre and Film at UBC, and Graduate Advisor for the Cinema and Media Studies graduate program. She is the author of *Vulgar Beauty: Acting Chinese in the Global Sensorium* (Duke University Press, 2022) and conducts research on transnational Asian cinemas; film-philosophy; abject and enchanted epistemologies; star studies; digital and new media; and critical theories of gender, sexuality, and race and ethnicity. In addition to her scholarly work, Zuo writes, directs, and produces narrative films, visual essays, documentaries, and music videos. 

thumbnail_Mila Zuo Headshot option 1.jpg

Mila Zuo Headshot option 1.jpg

Mila Zuo on Diane Severin Nguyen

Saturday Session

Diane Severin Nguyen

Across her moving image work, Diane Severin Nguyen depicts characters driven to express the enigmatic truths of their existence. Faced with the stultifying effects of historical trauma and the ungraspable nature of intergenerational memory, Nguyen’s works explore her protagonists’ struggle to realize their agency in the present. 

At the Contemporary Art Gallery, Nguyen presents *In Her Time (Iris’ Version)*, a new edit of her 2023 feature-length film *In Her Time*. Set amid the outsized period sets of Hengdian World Studios, the largest film studio in Asia, the film follows Iris, a young actress searching for her voice as she prepares for the leading role in a Chinese historical epic. Couched in the conceit of a “making of” special, *In Her Time* depicts Iris behind the scenes, rehearsing lines and describing the artistic process of coming to inhabit her character. Throughout, she deliberates over the demand the film places upon her to master performing pain and victimization. *Iris’ Version* introduces new content shot from Iris’ iPhone camera, intercutting the “official” footage with reflections on the filmmaking process from the actress’ perspective.

*In Her Time* was commissioned and produced by the Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai, with support from the Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver. 

*Iris’ Version* is 67 minutes and begins at the following times each day:
12:00, 1:10, 2:20, 3:30, 4:40

#### Biography
Diane Severin Nguyen works with photography, video and installation. Through material and sculptural experimentations, Nguyen approaches the photographic moment as one of transformation. The artist is particularly interested in exceeding photography as a mode of documentation, and engages with it rather as a set of conditions shaped by desire and speculation. Her video work narrativizes these tensions by examining the histories of power, victimhood and forms of propaganda that underpin cultural (and self) image-making. She has exhibited her work internationally, in places like SculptureCenter, The Renaissance Society, Rockbund Art Museum, MoMA PS1, the Carnegie Museum of Art, the Schinkel Pavilion, Jeu du Paume, the Hammer Museum, and many others. Her films have been screened at film festivals such as the New York Film Festival, International Film Festival Rotterdam and Berlinale. Nguyen is a recent recipient of the 2023 Guggenheim fellowship and lives and works in New York.

CAG - Diane Severin Nguyen - Exhibition Guide - Large Print - FINAL.pdf

CAG - Diane Severin Nguyen - Exhibition Guide - Regular Print - FINAL.pdf

thumbnail_01 DIane Severin Nguyen 2024.jpg

01 DIane Severin Nguyen 2024.jpg

Diagonal view of four benches facing a large screen with pink and red ribbons surrounding a perimeter. Onscreen, several bodies lay in a darkened room surrounded by bubbles and ribbons.

thumbnail_01 Diane Severin Nguyen 2024.jpg

01 Diane Severin Nguyen 2024.jpg

Diagonal view of four benches facing a large screen with pink and red ribbons forming a curtain around the perimeter. Onscreen, a child sits on a bed in a dark room, clutching a pink object and looking out a window.

thumbnail_02 Diane Severin Nguyen 2024.jpg

02 Diane Severin Nguyen 2024.jpg

View of a large screen seen through a wall of pink and ribbon ribbons. Onscreen, a woman lies on a bed with arms crossed gazing into the eyes of a stuffed yellow bear wearing a red ascot.

thumbnail_03 Diane Severin Nguyen 2024.jpg

03 Diane Severin Nguyen 2024.jpg

Two rows of benches face a screen in a room with pink and red ribbons walls. Onscreen, red liquid drips down the palm of a paper cut-out propaganda-style image of a young girl saluting. 

thumbnail_04 Diane Severin Nguyen 2024.jpg

04 Diane Severin Nguyen 2024.jpg

Two rows of benches face a screen in a room with pink and red ribbons walls. Onscreen, an image of a woman blowdrying her hair is overlain on a collage made of movie paraphernalia.

thumbnail_05 Diane Severin Nguyen 2024.jpg

05 Diane Severin Nguyen 2024.jpg

Two rows of benches face a screen in a room with pink and red ribbons walls. Onscreen, a woman surrounded by smiling soldiers clutches her chest while confetti falls on her.

thumbnail_06 Diane Severin Nguyen 2024.jpg

06 Diane Severin Nguyen 2024.jpg

Two rows of benches face a screen in a room with pink and red ribbons walls. Onscreen, a woman faces the viewer with the text caption If I hadn’t created my own world at the bottom of the screen. 

Saturday Session

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