Zeitz MOCAA presents a one-day symposium centering the work of Vietnamese American artist Tuan Andrew Nguyen in the context of their solo exhibition The Other Side of Now, on at Zeitz MOCAA until September 2025. The gathering is to critically engage with Nguyen’s work and its connections to the African continent. The exhibition explores the transnational entanglements created by colonisation and war, looking particularly at the erased voices of Vietnamese, Senegalese and Moroccan history.
Zeitz MOCAA invites you to join us in this gathering which will comprise of a roundtable discussion unpacking the relationships we keep with lost or buried archives. Followed by an afternoon screening of one of the film works in the exhibition, The Unburied Sounds of a Troubled Horizon, at the Labia Theatre, the oldest independent art-repertory cinema in South Africa.
Date & Time
Saturday, 23 August 2025 | 10 am – 5 pm
Venue
Zeitz MOCAA (Level 6, Ocular Lounge) + The Labia Theatre
MC
Khanyi Mawhayi, Curatorial Assistant at Zeitz MOCAA
Cost
Participation is free with the purchase of a museum entry ticket of R250 pp.
about the other side of now publication
Launched on the occasion of The Other Side of Now exhibition, the publication offers critical reflections on the work of Tuan Andrew Nguyen. Included are thought provoking essays by cultural practitioner and curator Marie Helene Pereira, Professor M. Neelika Jayawardane, and Senior Curator & Head of Curatorial Affairs at Zeitz MOCAA Dr Greer Valley, as well as an essay from the curator of the exhibition Beata America. Each text focuses on one of the three films present within the exhibition. The publication is designed by Vietnamese design company rice creative.
Please note that there are two separate links to book for the Symposium & Book Launch as well as the Film Screening.
about the participants
Tuan Andrew Nguyen
Tuan Andrew Nguyen was born in 1976, in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Shortly after, he and his family migrated to the United States, where he lived, and eventually graduated from the Fine Arts program at the University of California, Irvine in 1999 and received his Master of Fine Arts from The California Institute of the Arts in 2004. Nguyen currently lives and works in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
M. Neelika Jayawardane
M. Neelika Jayawardane is Professor of English at the State University of New York-Oswego, and a Senior Research Associate at The Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study (JIAS) (JIAS), University of Johannesburg, South Africa.
Traci Kwaai
Traci Kwaai is a sixth generation Kalk Bay Fisher Child. She is a story keeper, decolonial ocean historian, social and ecological activist.
Paolo Israel
Paolo Israel is an associate professor in the Department of Historical Studies of the University of the Western Cape.
Dr Greer Valley
Dr Greer Valley is a curator, scholar, and researcher whose work engages with the intersections of art, history, and epistemic justice.