Kimvi Nguyen

Jointly funded by the European Cultural Foundation and the Creative Den Foundation Kimvi Nguyen will be working in Morocco from 1st – 23rd April 2017.

The Creative Den and Kimvi are excited about the opportunities this residency will provide to her and to the community in Tamnougalt in the Draa Valley.

Kimvi Nguyen: Artist Statement
I seek to challenge concepts of collaboration by designing new forms of art-making that move freely between participants, media and spaces. The people I meet, the materials I find in each new place and the ideas and conversations which these generate are integral to my artistic practice of drawing, sculpture and performance.
I am deeply fascinated by new places and their inhabitants and, as a British-Vietnamese artist, I relish my own sense of difference in relation to each new place. I enthusiastically generate conversations with local people and seek to spend as much time as I can in each new location before beginning to make work.
The materials I choose to use are of huge significance to me, and I always remain faithful to my ethos of only using available and found materials. I do not wish to tread heavily on the environment in which I find myself in, rather I seek to make art work which reflects each place and is of each place. I do not take artistic materials with me to a residency project, but only use the materials I find at the location to create my work.
I am very interested in the physical aspects of making and my work utilises many traditional craft skills, some of which are linked to my father’s cultural traditions.
As an artist working in residence, collaboration with local people is particularly important to me, and peoples’ input is a valuable material resource. Much of my work involves local traditions in some way, either physically or conceptually. Ideas during my residency projects in Russia, Morocco, Winchester and Mottisfont Abbey have all been generated in this way.
I believe deeply in the power of art-making as a tool to generate well-being within communities and to honour what may have been over-looked. My work is thoughtful and sensitive and communicates concepts of beauty, balance and power.
Power of art making.