Duy Nguyen decoding diaspora: Multimedia narratives of belonging

Building speculative altars and reimagining Vietnamese identity through a sci-fi lens

Images that circulate widely on social media play a decisive role in shaping how social and political realities are produced, perceived, and contested. Far from being neutral, these images contribute to the formation of cultural and territorial identities, reinforcing dominant narratives while also holding the potential to disrupt, reframe, and resist them.

Within this context, Der Greif “Local Voices” continues to foreground situated perspectives and collaborative authorship as a way of slowing down image circulation and re-embedding images within their social, cultural, and political conditions. Through an ongoing exercise in co-writing, the project examines how visual practices can counter homogenizing narratives and support more plural, democratic forms of representation by insisting on specificity, locality, and dialogue, foregrounding situated knowledge over dominant or centralized narratives.

In this conversation with Duy Nguyen, a 2026 FUTURES Talent, we explore the speculative future of the Vietnamese diaspora, navigating the blurred lines between inherited trauma and imagined identity. Centering on his project “Minimal Prayer,” Nguyen discusses how he utilizes a background in graphic design and multimedia installations to move beyond the traditional constraints of 2D photography. He transitions from purely documenting the past to building a science-fiction world where spiritual identity is a form of quiet resistance. The dialogue reveals a practice built on the friction between his upbringing on the Norwegian west coast and his roots in the Mekong Delta, ultimately framing image-making not just as a tool for representation, but as a vital, material means of decoding the complex, multicultural reality of the global diaspora.

Duy Nguyen is a Norwegian-Vietnamese designer and artist based between Oslo and Berlin. Born in the Bidong refugee camp in Malaysia and raised on the rugged west coast of Norway, Nguyen’s personal history serves as the primary engine for his research into migration, diaspora narratives, and the complexities of multicultural identity. While much of Vietnamese refugee history remains shrouded in post-war trauma and politically charged rhetoric, Nguyen’s practice seeks to move beyond the mere ‘digestion’ of the past. Instead, he examines the current position of displaced individuals in the Western world to envision what a diasporic identity might look like in the speculative future.

Ilaria Sponda: How did you first start using photography as a medium, and how did you eventually transition into your more sculptural and artistic way of working?

Duy Nguyen: It actually started while I was living in China about six or seven years ago. My background is originally in graphic design, which I did for many years, but I picked up a camera almost by accident. I just had a simple point-and-shoot camera back then, but over time, that grew into a much deeper interest. In the beginning, the work had a very commercial vibe. That shifted around 2019 or 2020. After my mother passed away, I felt a need to understand myself and my family history more deeply. I realized I could use photography as a tool for storytelling to explore those personal narratives.

IS: And how did that lead you toward sculpture?

DN: It felt like a very natural progression. I was working primarily with film photography, but I eventually started feeling limited by the 2D surface. I found myself spending a lot of time trying to stage specific scenes or objects just to photograph them. At some point, I had a realization: “Why am I making this just to photograph it? Why don’t I just let it be a sculpture?” I experimented with printmaking and various other techniques first, but eventually, the work evolved into the sculptural forms I create now.

IS: In your “Minimal Prayer” project, here featured, I notice you’re blending quite a few sculptural elements into the work. It seems to be moving in a very multimedia direction.

DN: Yeah, that’s exactly the direction I’m heading in now, and it’s something I plan to explore further during my master’s program. I don’t even think about it strictly as photography anymore as it’s more about image making. I’m interested in how photography can exist within a multimedia context and what else it can mean for my practice.

IS: What kind of images are you using for these narratives of belonging and family? Is it found footage, or are you still photographing everything yourself?

DN: I actually don’t work with archives very much. Part of my philosophy is not looking too far back into the past, but rather imagining what the future could look like. That said, the act of taking pictures is still a huge part of my process. I genuinely enjoy the physical act of photographing, so I want to keep that at the core of my work while using it to tell these stories in a more expansive way.

IS: I’m also curious about how you integrate science fiction into “Minimal Prayer”. What kind of references are you drawing from, and how do you bring that into your personal storytelling?

DN: It actually goes back to my childhood. I was born in a refugee camp in Malaysia after my parents fled the Vietnam War, and we eventually settled on a tiny island on the west coast of Norway. There were only about 10,000 people there, and as a kid, I found my refuge in the local library, specifically in the fantasy and sci-fi section. I lost touch with that interest for a while during my studies, but it resurfaced last year during an artist residency in Vietnam. I tried to find sci-fi books by Vietnamese writers to read, but they were almost impossible to find in English.

IS: Why do you think that is?

DN: After talking to people there, I came to the conclusion that the Vietnamese people and the diaspora are still digesting the past. There is so much trauma from colonialism and the war, which is still quite recent, that it’s hard for artists to imagine a "sci-fi future" when we’re still trying to understand what just happened. That sparked something in me. I started wondering what Vietnamese culture, or the diaspora culture, could look like in the future. Minimal Prayer is essentially me combining those two thoughts: my childhood love for sci-fi and the exploration of a future Vietnamese identity.

IS: Thinking about iconography and the visual language you use, what are you specifically looking for when you bring these images into your narrative?

DN: For many of us in the diaspora, we are still trying to understand our own childhoods. Often, our parents didn't talk about the past. You grow up surrounded by certain iconography at home, but the moment you step outside, you encounter a completely different set of cultural symbols. In Norway, which is a Christian country, we had a "host family" to help us integrate, a priest and his wife. So, I was going to Sunday school and church, while at home, we were Buddhist and practiced Mekong Delta folk religions. As a child, that mishmash of icons was very confusing. In my project “Distant Tongues,” I use these specific, cheap blankets you often find in immigrant or refugee households. They are common objects, but for me, they are cultural markers. My work is really about decoding my upbringing through these objects.

IS: It’s fascinating because those references are already embedded in the multicultural world you grew up in. Yet, in a Norwegian gallery, for example, most people might not recognize that reality.

DN: Exactly. I often go to galleries and see work by Norwegian artists that doesn't represent my experience at all. I’m trying to bring these objects into those spaces so people like me can feel represented. I’m taking existing icons and found objects and placing them into the context of diaspora discourse.

IS: What I find most striking is your approach to "non-memory." You aren’t just digging through archives; you’re moving forward without being strictly tethered to a visual past. That feels very future-oriented.

DN: I think that’s because archiving is actually a privilege. I only have about three family albums. I don’t even have a birth certificate. I can’t depend on a traditional archive because there isn't much to dig into. Instead, I treat experiences and feelings as my archive. My work isn't documentary; it’s more about "making things up" based on real emotions. It’s not pure documentation, but it’s rooted in something very real.

IS: How does that approach translate to your process when you’re on a residency, specifically your recent time in Vietnam? How do you work on-site when the "archive" is so fragmented?

DN: It always starts with the people. During that residency, I spent a lot of time just talking to locals and making friends. Since I couldn’t ask my own family about these specific histories, I found myself absorbing their stories into my own. That experience actually fed directly into Minimal Prayer. I’m taking a small break now to finish a photo book of my "legacy" work, but I definitely plan to keep expanding that project. I’ve approached it as a form of world-building, creating a specific science-fiction universe centered on Vietnamese diaspora culture. I want to continue making different works within that space; they don’t all have to follow a linear plot, but they all share the same world.