"Cruising Utopia" — group show

   Four artists asking the same question: what it is to enter a utopia, to be present inside it, and to reach beyond it. The answers run from sculpture and silk painting to installation and performance — free to walk into, right in the middle of Bến Thành.

   The title is borrowed on purpose. It comes from “Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity” by José Esteban Muñoz — a book that treats utopia not as escapism but as a critical desiring that stems from recognising something not-yet-here in a system that has yet to accommodate queerness. From there, “Cruising Utopia” becomes a collective gesture of queer hope: Vietnamese queer artists and creatives from different disciplines coming together to sketch a schema for a shared horizon, where the past nourishes the possibilities of the future.

   The four artists
— Nhân Phan — works across software, installation and film. Currently a Fulbright student on the MFA in Media Arts at UCLA; founder of Lướt Code (CodeSurfing), a former member and then advisor of the Processing Fellowship, and a Lumen Prize nominee. His work is about how technology shapes relationships, feelings and desire — lyrical, poetic, at times deliberately sentimental
— Hoàng Anh — painter and photographer based in Hanoi who has centred her recent practice on Vietnamese silk painting, staging spontaneous dialogues between fine art and fashion; drawing on the energy of punk rock, the symbolism of pop art and the depth of subcultures
— Nguyễn Hiếu Ngọc — performance, installation and sculpture; treats the body as an in-between zone that holds memory. Took part in “Lắng Nghe Điểm Chạm”, an initiative bringing art into the life of Vietnam's Deaf and hard-of-hearing community
— Vỹ Lân (Linh Thân) — filmmaker and community organiser, founder of Tắm Đêm, a poetry project built on performance and collective writing; has worked with VietPride, Hanoi Queer, the Nguyen Art Foundation and others

   The show also launches the fifth collection from Ngài, a fashion label founded in 2023 that explores Vietnamese queer identity. Ngài embodies the tension between opposing definitions — masculinity and femininity, established power and ephemeral myth — shifting through the grey areas of semantics, culture and gender to blur the binaries.

   It is for people following contemporary Vietnamese art and the queer practices within it, and for anyone who prefers a show that mixes media rather than a row of paintings on a wall. The scale is small, so you can look slowly — on a weekday you may well have the room to yourself. Bến Thành puts it in walking distance of District 1's centre.

   The organisers can be reached at [email protected]. Parking: the TNXP car park at 4 Trương Định, Bến Thành, a few minutes away on foot.

   The most interesting utopia is not the one you reach but the one you picture. How do you picture yours?