Exhibition 'Nhu Xuan Hua - Hug of a swan' in Huis Marseille, Museum for Photography
n September 2022 Huis Marseille will present the first ever museum exhibition of the French-Vietnamese artist Nhu Xuan Hua (1989, Paris), a remarkable new talent. Hua made her name as a photographer for magazines such as Vogue, The Wall Street Journal, Dazed Beauty, DANSK and TIME Magazine and worked on commissions for big fashion brands like Kenzo, Maison Margiela, Dior and Levi’s. Nevertheless, fashion photography is only one of her talents. The exhibition Hug of a swan highlights the diversity of her artistic work, which also takes the form of installations and autonomous work inspired by family photos. The exhibition shows that these categories cannot be detached from one another; the inspiration for all of Hua’s creations arises out of personal and shared memories.
In the aftermath of the Vietnam War (1955–1975) Nhu Xuan Hua’s family fled to Belgium and France, and Hua was subsequently born in suburban Paris. As a second-generation immigrant she grew up between two cultures. After she left her parental home she felt a growing separation from her roots. She asked her relatives about their past in the hope of closing this gap and, in so doing, learning more about herself. The exhibition in Huis Marseille is effectively Hua’s artistic response to this research, presented in atmospheric installations of altars with associative artefacts.
