Please note that the archive has so far only focused on collecting contextual materials directly related to Phụ Lục, such as programs, projects, and exhibitions in which the group participated as Phụ Lục. The individual performances of its members, which are no less important for understanding the group’s collective practice, are still in the process of being gathered, and therefore, only a few are currently present on this website.
Contextual materials
NUMBER
IMAGE
LINKS / FILES
INFORMATION
2006
Da Lat – HCMC, Vietnam
Co-organized by Blue Space Contemporary Art Center, Concrete House Bangkok (Thailand), E.P.I. Zentrum (ASA European) in Germany, and Global Affairs (Austria), the 14th International Performance Art Conference took place from October 2–8 in Da Lat and Ho Chi Minh City. The conference brought together over 30 artists from 19 countries, including Vietnam, Japan, Germany, Italy, Thailand, Singapore, the United States, Northern Ireland, the United Kingdom, South Korea, Australia, Spain, and others.
Participating Vietnamese artists included students from the then Hanoi University of Fine Arts, including Pham Duc Toan, Vu Duc Toan, Nguyen Huy An, Nguyen Hong Hai, and the Ho Chi Minh City University of Fine Arts. A performance art workshop was also held on October 8 at the Ho Chi Minh City Fine Arts Association.
2007
Hanoi - Hue - HCMC, Vietnam
Sneaky Week (2007) was an independent performance art initiative that emerged from Pham Duc Tung’s desire to move beyond the “safe zones” of alternative art spaces and bring performance into public life. Following his participation in the 14th International Performance Art Conference in Saigon and Da Lat, he was inspired to create a project that encouraged performance artists to engage directly with everyday contexts and audiences.
The project invited around 30 artists from Hanoi, Huế, and Saigon to realize performances in their own cities. It received support from the Arts Network Asia and culminated in a video installation at L’Espace Hanoi, featuring documentation of all the performances. True to its name, Sneaky Week took place quietly, without publicity or formal invitations—artists performed independently in public, facing spontaneous situations and reactions from unaware audiences. Despite challenges in obtaining official permission, the project became a significant experiment in reclaiming public space and testing the limits of artistic agency in Vietnam’s early performance art scene.
2010
Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong
Performance art has been flourishing across Asia, shaped by the region’s diverse social, political, and cultural contexts. In Hong Kong, the Centre for Community Cultural Development (CCCD) and the Asia People's Theatre Festival Society (APTFS) have played key roles in promoting performance art through international exchanges, festivals, and community-based initiatives.
In collaboration with Asia Art Archive (AAA), CCCD organized Action Script to mark the launch of AAA’s Performance Art Initiative—a decade-long project to research, document, and archive performance art practices in Asia. This initiative responds to the urgency of preserving an inherently ephemeral art form while fostering dialogue about its history and future. The five-day symposium gathered artists, curators, and researchers from across the region for discussions, live performances, and workshops addressing the challenges of archiving and historicizing performance art, as well as envisioning its development over the next decade.
2010
Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong | 亞洲藝術文獻庫
To accompany Action Script: Symposium on Performance Art Practice and Documentation in Asia, Asia Art Archive presented a selection of materials from its collection in its library.
The display offered a glimpse into Asia’s dynamic performance art scene, focusing on the growing number of festivals that serve as vital platforms for exchange, activism, and experimentation. On view were catalogues, posters, leaflets, press clippings, and digital materials—often overlooked archival items due to their fragile and dispersed nature. These materials were rotated every few weeks, arranged according to alternative classification systems that challenged conventional archival methods.
By experimenting with parallel systems of organization, AAA sought to question how documentation of such an ephemeral art form could be preserved without erasing its fluidity. Complementing this idea, self-archived collections by Tehching Hsieh, Judy Freya Sibayan, Lee Wen, and Kwok Mangho (Frog King) were showcased, demonstrating how artists reclaim authorship over their own archives and the narratives of their practices.
2010
Nhà Sàn Studio, Hanoi, Vietnam
In 2010, Nhà Sàn Studio inaugurated the Emerging Artists Program, comprising six solo exhibitions by Bopha Xorigia Lê Huy Hoàng, Nguyễn Trần Nam, Nguyễn Phương Linh, Lại Diệu Hà, Nguyễn Trinh Thi, and Nguyễn Văn Phúc, who was then later replaced by Phụ Lục.
Prior to this initiative, these artists had intersected in a number of significant collaborative and independent contexts, including 10+ (the tenth anniversary of Nhà Sàn Studio, 2008), the Young Contemporary Art Festival at the Vietnam University of Fine Arts (2007), and Saigon Open City (2006). Such shared experiences provided an important framework for the articulation of their individual practices within the program. Conceived as a platform for the emergence of a new generation of contemporary artists in Vietnam, the Emerging Artists Program was realized with the support of the Cultural Development and Exchange Fund (CDEF) of the Danish Embassy in Hanoi.
2010
Nhà Sàn Studio,Hanoi, Vietnam
An international performance art event organized by Nhà Sàn Studio and curated by Nguyễn Phương Linh, Bill Nguyễn and Gabby Miller
“Over the past decade, Vietnamese contemporary and performance artists have sought to engage the public and expand understanding of art, despite facing significant challenges such as censorship, limited education, lack of institutional support, and few available spaces for practice or presentation. While many have performed internationally, Vietnam has had very few official or publicized performance art events, resulting in narrow perceptions of what performance art can be. In response, Nhà Sàn Studio organized IN:ACT (9–14 August 2010) in Hanoi, bringing together 11 international and 9 Vietnamese artists. The event aimed to create a platform for young and emerging artists from Vietnam, the Asia-Pacific region, and beyond to exchange ideas, collaborate, and explore new forms of artistic and cultural engagement.” (from the organizer)
IN:ACT 2011
2011
Different locations, Hanoi, Vietnam
An international performance art event organized by Nhà Sàn Studio and curated by Nguyễn Phương Linh, Bill Nguyễn and Gabby Miller
2011
Different locations, Hanoi, Vietnam
An international performance art event organized by Nhà Sàn Studio and curated by Nguyễn Phương Linh, Bill Nguyễn and Gabby Miller
2011
As part of IN:ACT 2011, co-organized by Nguyễn Phương Linh, Bill Nguyễn and Gabby Miller.
2012
Goodman Arts Centre, Singapore
The Future of Imagination 8 catalogue was published on the occasion of the performance art event Future of Imagination 8 (FOI 8), held at the Goodman Arts Centre, 90 Goodman Road, Singapore, from 1 to 5 August 2012. Released in August 2012, the catalogue features several notable essays, including Urgently Seeking V… Vitamin, Visibility, Vitality – Performance Art in Vietnam by Trần Lương and Anything Can Happen between Now and Then… by Veronika Radulovic.
2012
Japan Foundation Hanoi, Vietnam
Skylines With Flying People 2 is a multiplex contemporary art project curated by Nguyễn Phương Linh, aiming to explore alternative methods of art-making and collective collaboration through a range of activities including space renovation, open-studios, exhibitions, performances, talks, and documentation. A central highlight is the open-studio program—common internationally but rare in Việt Nam—where about ten artists work in specially constructed “dream-come-true” studios at the Japan Foundation, presenting both past works and works-in-progress while engaging directly with visitors. These studios, designed and renovated by Japanese architect Tsuneo Noda, embody the artists’ visions of ideal creative spaces, turning the venue into a dynamic site of artistic production and exchange.
2014
Hanoi Doclab, Hanoi, Vietnam
In 2014, Hanoi Doclab and the Goethe-Institut Hanoi hosted a daily screening and art talk featuring Nguyễn Trinh Thi and The Appendix Group, focusing on performance-based video practices. The program presented a selection of works including Agricultural Song (Video: Vincent Baumont, 2010), Honey (Video: Vincent Baumont, 2010), Untitled (Video: Vincent Baumont, 2010), Frozen Rain (Video: Vincent Baumont, 2010), Unsubtitled (Video: Jamie Maxtone-Graham, 2010), Hair Wash (2011), Sound of Dust (Kunming, 2011), and Que Faire (Video: Jamie Maxtone-Graham, 2011).
2015
Nhà Sàn Collective, Hanoi, Vietnam
Skylines With Flying People 3 (Skylines 3) is an interdisciplinary art project initiated in 2014 that brings together young Vietnamese artists and international scholars to explore themes of journeying, borders, and imagination in the context of Việt Nam’s Đổi Mới era. Inspired by a 1988 poem by avant-garde poet Trần Dần, the project challenges participants to “fly out” of their comfort zones to reflect on issues such as history, migration, urbanization, exploitation, and gender norms. Through 11 sub-projects realized nationwide, 6 exhibitions held in Hà Nội (2016–2017), and a series of public seminars titled Knowledge Exchange, Skylines 3 fosters collaboration across contemporary art, history, literature, anthropology, archaeology, and sociology, unveiling new modes of knowledge production and exchange. The project is inaugurated by Nhà Sàn Collective, a non-profit artist-run space in Hà Nội dedicated to contemporary and experimental practices.
2016-2017
Six Space, Hanoi, Vietnam
The project Reimagine The Artist/Artisan, initiated in early 2016 with support from the Prince Claus Fund, responds to the rapid modernization and commercialization that have increasingly eroded Vietnam’s traditional craft villages, as well as the challenges faced by young artists seeking new mediums and sources of inspiration. Over the span of twelve months, participating artists visited and conducted research in more than fifty craft villages across the Red River Delta, working closely with artisans in selected communities. Parallel to this collaborative creative process, a series of talks and workshops in Hanoi introduced the stories of these villages to a wider public. The exchanges among artists, artisans, researchers, and audiences formed an essential foundation for shaping the final works.
The project raises a set of fundamental questions: Is the notion of authorship still central to an artwork? Where does the boundary lie between folk art and academic art? How are skill and concept negotiated across art, craft, and design? The five works created by Nguyen Huy An, Ngo Thanh Bac, Le Giang, Tran Thu Hang, and Dao Le Hong My, in collaboration with artisans, offer distinct responses to these inquiries. Trained within Western aesthetic frameworks, the artists return to traditional materials, images, and narratives as a way to reconnect with cultural roots while reinterpreting them within contemporary contexts. Their inspirations derive from everyday life, folklore, and spirituality. The resulting works from Reimagine The Artist/Artisan are not only experimental fusions of artistic ideas with artisan techniques and stories, but also early efforts to envision new forms of works or products for traditional craft villages in the face of ongoing urbanization and globalization.
2018
as part of a three-chapter open studio by Ngô Thành Bắc in MoT+++ performance residency
2019-2020
ILHAM Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in collaboration with The Factory Contemporary Arts Centre, HCMC, Vietnam
Domestic Bliss is the resulting exhibition of the second edition of ‘Pollination’, a programme driven by the need to create critically active and supportive artist-curator-community networks within Southeast Asia. Initiated by The Factory Contemporary Arts Centre in Vietnam, the 2019 edition is co-developed with ILHAM Gallery with the creation of a “two-curator/two-exhibition/two-artist showcase of emerging art” from both Vietnam and Malaysia. Over the last six months, curators Khatijah Rahmat (Malaysia) and Lê Thuân Uyên (Vietnam), have worked closely together to present Domestic Bliss featuring the works of emerging artists Izat Arif (Malaysia) and Hoàng Minh Đúc (Vietnam, based in Australia).
2019
Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany
The symposium Pathways of Performativity in Contemporary Southeast Asian Art brought together leading scholars, curators, and artists to discuss how postcolonial, Cold War, and political-economic conditions have shaped Southeast Asia’s artistic landscape since World War II. Keynote speakers Nora Taylor (School of the Art Institute of Chicago) and May Adadol-Ingawanij (University of Westminster) were joined by contributors including Anida Yoeu Ali, Thomas Berghuis, Pamela Corey, Wulan Dirgantoro, Nathalie Johnston, Roger Nelson, Sally Oey, Eileen Legaspi Ramirez, Amanda Rath, Chương-Đài Võ, and meLê Yamomo. Together, they examined performance’s role as a bridge between visual art, theatre, dance, music, and political activism in the region from the 1960s to today. Evening programs featured Anida Yoeu Ali’s The Buddhist Bug and Ho Rui An’s Conspiracy of Files.
The symposium also launched Archives in Residence: Southeast Asia Performance Collection at Haus der Kunst — a research and digital archive initiated by Something Human and hosted by the Live Art Development Agency (London). The archive documents performance, live art, and social interventions by over 50 Southeast Asian and diasporic artists, highlighting networks and practices from Cambodia, Vietnam, Singapore, and the Philippines, and was presented publicly in Germany for the first time.
2021
Online on Instagram Live
In the study of Vietnamese performance art, Hay Là has observed that the works of Phụ Lục appear distinct from the broader field owing to their mode of collective performance. In the discussion, Hay Là engages with members of Phụ Lục to examine the notion of “group performance practice” — specifically, how elements of performance are perceived and negotiated within the dynamics of a collective, in contrast to those of an individual, and the particular effects such a mode of practice engenders.
This conversation with Phụ Lục will be structured in two parts:
• Part I: Hay Là in dialogue with Phụ Lục on the topic of “Group Performance Practice.”
• Part II: An open exchange addressing questions and concerns from the audience.
Front Cover: Anida Yoeu Ali, Campus Dining, The Buddhist Bug Series, Digital C print, 2012. Photo courtesy of Studio Revolt.
Volume 6, Number 1, March 2022
Special issue: Pathways of Performativity in Contemporary Southeast Asian Art
2022
This special issue of Southeast of Now explores the concept of performativity as a critical framework for understanding artistic practices in and beyond Southeast Asia. It builds on the 2019 conference Pathways of Performativity in Contemporary Southeast Asian Art (Haus der Kunst, Munich), expanding discussions initiated there to examine how performance and performativity traverse disciplinary, geographic, and historical boundaries. Edited and curated by Eva Bentcheva, Annie Jael Kwan, and Damian Lentini, the issue gathers contributions that trace how performance operates as both artistic method and analytical lens across the region’s contemporary art histories.
2023
Nguyen Art Foundation, HCMC, Vietnam
No more, not yet is a two-chapter exhibition, curated by Bill Nguyễn, that traces Nguyễn Thị Thanh Mai’s practice across different contexts of displacement and community. The first chapter, shown at EMASI Nam Long, focuses on her decade-long engagement with the undocumented Vietnamese community on Tonlé Sap lake in Cambodia, weaving together photography, film, sound, and archives to reflect on their precarious existence. The second, at EMASI Van Phuc, shifts to her collaborations with peers across Vietnam through the Edge of the Citadel project, where nearly 20 artists – including Phụ Lục – respond to the forced relocation of families from the citadel walls with works that range from readymades and painting to conceptual and performative gestures. Together, both chapters probe histories of marginalization, memory, and survival, while questioning the role of artists in mediating between loss, resilience, and collective futures.
2024 - ongoing
Thủ Thiêm Peninsula, HCMC, Vietnam
The Đo Đạc Project is an art–curatorial initiative by Linh Lê that responds to the history, stories, and geography of the Thủ Thiêm Peninsula in Ho Chi Minh City through artworks as well as educational activities such as workshops, talks, and discussions. “Đo đạc", meaning “measuring”, evokes the act of surveying and mapping—grasping shape, size, direction, and concrete boundaries. With its focus on Thủ Thiêm—long regarded as the “other side” of bustling Saigon and now rapidly transforming into the city’s new financial hub—the project represents an effort to understand, connect with, and preserve the heritage, knowledge, and memories of this land as they gradually disappear under the pressures of urban development.
Taking place from 16 to 22 December 20204, Đo Đạc Performance Art Week attempts to be a conduit for practitioners and audiences to critically and creatively engage with the issues of urbanisation and environment in Thủ Thiêm in particular, and Ho Chi Minh City as a whole, through performance art. Performance Art is a time-based practice and so it is temporal-impromptu and ephemeral. With quality as such, this medium has been employed by artists as an effective “tool” to express their views on socio-cultural issues in an environment that is heavily policed. The programme consists of Đo Đạc Performance Art Workshop led by The Appendix Group with the participation of 9 emerging performance artists, and a performance art event.
2025
Giswil, Switzerland
The 24th edition of the festival carries the title «Im Handumdrehn» — loosely translated as “in the blink of an eye.” The festival embraces hopefulness, welcomes serendipity, and celebrates the agility with which even the most entrenched situations can shift in an instant. Artists from Switzerland, Germany, and Vietnam open spaces for artistic encounter, with a focus on practices and strategies that operate outside institutional frameworks, confront social issues, and question everyday rituals.
The performance program features Antonia Röllin (Lucerne), Eva Fuhrer (Berne), Lại Diệu Hà (Hanoi), Đặng Thuỳ Anh (Hanoi), ’nSchuppel (Zürich, Trogen, Wildhaus), Phụ Lục (Hanoi) — comprising Vũ Đức Toàn, Nguyễn Huy An, and Ngô Thành Bắc — Rita Ambrosis (Locarno), Trân Trân (Lausanne), and Karin Meiner (Burgbrohl) with Boris Nieslony (Cologne). A presentation is also given by Vân Đỗ (Hanoi).
Last updated: 06/09/2025 — subject to continuous revision