In Conversation with Diane Severin Nguyen About A New Way of Seeing

As people run into the mess of reality, trapped by overloaded mundane tasks that never seem to end and consumerism that promotes everything as exchangeable goods, have people still upheld the sensibility and capability to be alert to the external environment—and, in essence, the connection and relationship between oneself and the outer world? How have we been shaped by our cultures, societal structures, institutional powers, architectures that we live in and pass by every day, objects that we use or interact with, and consumerism and the socio-economic and political valuation systems that we may have been born into and lived inside for generations—systems we now take as reality, like The Matrix Resurrections? Should we settle for what we are told, letting it become unconscious habit that bypasses our dialectical thinking net or fight against the "truth" for oneself?

Contemplating these things may not significantly change how we live and interact with the external world. But it brings air, awareness, connection to a broader world and timeframe, where human history is an ephemeral pop-up. Knowing oneself and one's relation to the world should never be paused. As we become more aware of the causes, complexities, and conflicts that have shaped and continue to shape ourselves, our families, and our surroundings, the essential takeaway should be: how do we respond to these and make decisions on a daily basis? Are we willing to feed into and reinforce the existing power systems, or do we want to remain clear on our right to be both insider and outsider?

In conversation with Diane Severin Nguyen, a Vietnamese-American artist who works with photography, video, and installation, we delve into these concepts - how they have impacted her artistic evolution, shaped her methodologies and works, and opened up a new realm of possibilities for seeing.

In a world of authority and manipulation, how do we break free from hierarchical confines?

Definition Trap: What it is and what it is not

In the classic episteme era, knowledge has been shaped by representation, which uses language, taxonomy, classification to make things (object and being) recognizable, understandable, and speakable. This episteme believes language is transparent that it is capable of mirroring reality. Differences are used to classify groups and identity. Things are defined by what they are not, such as a dog is defined since it is different than a cat, horse, and anything else.

Languages are controlled by power. Sadly, institutional powers decide what can be named, categorized, and defined, such as the calibration of normality, standards, and science, which have all shifted to serving different power dynamics.

The Cost of Representation: Why not take a side

"By taking a side and choosing a representation, people naturally reject all the opposite possibilities. It sounds safe and purified to agree to be represented, but it comes at a cost of loss and transfiguration." — Diane

To create a purified symbol or representation, it usually involves violence and guilt in the political realm. Relating to Diane's work In Her Time, it captures a fragment of Chinese history during the Nanjing Massacre. The purified image of the Chinese woman was built and reinforced in contrast to the evil acts of Japanese soldiers who coerced and enslaved Chinese comfort women during the anti-Japanese war in the 20th century.

In Her Time, 2023-2024, Still, 67min., 4K Video with Sound

A New Way of Seeing

"The limit of the language is the limit of the world." — Ludwig Wittgenstein

To know a thing, one can name it, describe it, define it. As discussed earlier, our languages are shaped by power, and attention is chased and manipulated by economic and political interests, creating a perfect information cocoon. For instance, photography becomes an agent of consumerism, where people seek photos that are aesthetic, rare, viral, and consumable, reinforcing the existing power and valuation systems in every detail of our lives.

But what about the unspeakable? When no word exists to provide certainty or safety, only sensations float and linger in the air. These sensations may escape the mainstream valuation system, allowing for the creation of a new way of seeing and feeling.

When Diane once thought she would work in politics, she found herself engaging with people through the lens of categorical labels—identities shaped for the convenience of governance. But rather than reducing individuals to such administrative abstractions, she came to seek the deeper, ineffable threads of human connection that elicit mutual recognition beyond classification.

Against the sun, 2021, Lightjet C-Print, custom steel frame, 63.50 x 50.80 cm

Living and Working with the Concepts

What is art?

"Art is what it's not. It is not a solution, not a function, not something with exchange value. Art exists outside of systems that seek to solve problems or assign utility. Instead, art creates a 'rupture in time'. It makes certain things sacred and profane, shifts our attention, and transforms meaning. Art is about 'seeing the entire world in a strand of hair'—it's a radical reimagining of perception. Its power lies in its ability to exist beyond logic, beyond use-value, challenging how we understand and experience the world. The true essence of art is not to provide answers, but to create a space of complexity, contradiction, and profound transformation." — Diane Severin Nguyen

What is artistic inspiration?

"Artistic inspiration emerges from the landscape of inner conflict. I make art from a space of lack and desire, from the paradoxical tensions within myself. My work springs from conflicting feelings, from the spaces of 'I want this, but I also want that.' It's about the desire for something I do not have, the impulse to expose hypocrisy, to reveal the violence inherent in making meaning. Sometimes, I am driven to prove a point—to show how meaning is created through exclusion, how taking a position requires denying everything else. Art becomes a way to pull out life's contradictions, to make it acceptable to live with complexity. My inspiration is not about creating comfort, but about confronting the painful truth that everything is always changing that things can mean multiple things at the same time. It's about resisting the human tendency to seek safety in a single, pure perspective." — Diane Severin Nguyen

What is an artwork?

"An artwork is not a representation, but a resistance. The artist does not illustrate an idea, but creates a space of radical openness. A strong artist holds their concerns while allowing multiple points of entry, embracing misunderstanding as a form of truth. Artwork resists consumption, challenging viewers to engage deeply rather than passively absorb. 

My work is anti-representation. I don't believe truth can be captured in an image. Instead, I'm interested in how an artwork can shift perception, create tension, and refuse simple interpretation. The artist's role is not to provide answers, but to increase complexity, to make people think, to confront the violence of fixed meaning."  — Diane Severin Nguyen

Reunification Palace, 2023, Lightjet C-Print, custom steel frame, 76.20 x 60.96 cm

Democratic Medium

It is controversial and hard to make art out of photography due to the democratic character of the medium—it is affordable, accessible, and everyone can take photos of everything. Yet it is also a major enforcer of existing power systems, reinforcing orthodox standards such as beauty, identity, and status. It promotes consumable values central to the socio-economic playground—values that are too good to be true, escalating power even at the cost of misfortune.

These conflicting, harsh sides of the medium are precisely why Diane adopts it. Given its messiness and ease of slipping into unintended realms, how to work against these hazards is a core subject of her research and experimentation.

Kill this love, 2021, Lightjet C-Print, custom steel frame, 63.50 x 50.80 cm

The Concept: Meaning Construction

A central subject of Diane's work is researching how meaning is constructed through language, cultural codes, and visual systems, and how meaning shifts with context, power, and interpretation. This resonates with Roland Barthes' theories of structuralism and post-structuralism. From this perspective, it's not just about how a subject is seen or felt, but about the backbone coding system. Emotion is treated as material, shaped through translation, representation, and cultural coding.

When someone tries to communicate their experience through words, pictures, songs, etc., there is always an inherent translation loss. As long as one tries to communicate, some content will be lost forever. Many people are unable of handling this gap, thus it would be easier for them to claim object A is same as object B — my experiences equals my words. We see this everywhere in our lives — two people say "I love you" but may mean entirely different things—I love you because you keep me company, or I love you as a habitual response. Viral memes function in a similar way, offering a prosthetic language where sharedness is more comforting than accuracy. These socially pre-validated codes provide easy solutions for dealing with translation loss, but at the cost of reinforcing persistent power structures.

There is a huge grief in this translation loss, and that is where Diane's work resides.

"If I had to say my work was about one thing—I thought about this because someone asked me yesterday—if it was about one thing, if you want to die and be remembered as one thing, what would it be? I actually think my art is about semiotics, which is the structure of language and meanings. Even though my work is so emotional, I think I just play with emotion as a material." — Diane Severin Nguyen

As Diane articulates, she sees photography not as direct representation but as a complex language, where meaning is created through repetition, interruption, and contrast. Purity construction was something she mentioned often during our conversation. The aesthetics of beauty and perfection in her work—the flawless forms, the delicate feminine figures—signal the impossibility of full representation, questioning the void of translation loss, underpinned by violence and guilt. For instance, in In Her Time, there is an importance for Chinese women to be so pure that after the sexual violence during the anti-Japanese war, China can reclaim its dignity as being a victim. The pure and perfect symbol is essentially a response to the inability to process violence and guilt. Within this historical context, purity construction has also been weaponized by institutions to reinforce female gender roles, framing women as pure and virginal in opposition to transgression, a dichotomy known as the "virgin and whore complex," especially influential in Asian cultures.

By manipulating form, texture, and context, Diane creates a semiotic system that challenges viewers to look beyond surface representation and engage with the layered complexity embedded in each image.

In Her Time, 2023-2024, Still, 67min., 4K Video with Sound

Installation View, In Her Time, Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai, 2023

Recent Works in Vietnam

Diane joined the VAC Residency in Hanoi as a way to step away from her routine life in New York and take time to focus on her work in a new space. It wasn't about discovering something totally new, but more about changing her surroundings and getting the support she needed to create. What stood out to her about working in Vietnam was how close she could be to the materials around her.

"I think I just let myself absorb everything around me and work from that space. Being in a place like Vietnam inspires me endlessly on a material level. In New York, making work often means ordering all your materials online. But in Vietnam, I can literally gather things from my immediate environment. They interest me, and they help me access certain memories—sometimes deeply personal ones. That process feels much more appealing to me." — Diane Severin Nguyen

For her open studio following the residency, Diane presented two photographs alongside a two-channel video installation featuring a forest's snowscape and a rotation of little girls' dresses. These pieces reflect on the idea of purity, especially how it is shown in times of war. Inspired by memories of visiting orphanages as a child and thinking deeply about current events like the violence in Gaza, she looked at how children are often seen as symbols of innocence, and how that image can be used in powerful ways. The videos play in an eternal loop, following no clear beginning or end. Instead, they suggest cyclical time, moving forward and backward like a time machine, showing the artist's wish to change or control painful memories. In the video, it is snowing in a tropical jungle, strange and dreamlike, showing something that isn't real but still feels emotionally true. Through these works, Diane explores how we try to express loss and pain through images, and how that act always leaves something behind.

Installation View, Spring Snow, Vietnam Art Collection, Hanoi, 2025

Installation View, Spring Snow, Vietnam Art Collection, Hanoi, 2025

Installation View, Spring Snow, Vietnam Art Collection, Hanoi, 2025

About the artist

Diane Severin Nguyen works with photography, video, and installation. Through material and sculptural experimentations, Nguyen approaches the photographic moment as one of transformation. The artist is particularly interested in exceeding photography as a mode of documentation, and engages with it rather as a set of conditions shaped by desire and speculation. Her video work narrativizes these tensions by examining the histories of power, victimhood, and forms of propaganda that underpin cultural (and self) image-making. She has exhibited her work internationally, in places like SculptureCenter, The Renaissance Society, the Rockbund Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, MoMA PS1, the Carnegie Museum of Art, the Schinkel Pavilion, Jeu du Paume, the Hammer Museum, and many others. Her films have been screened at film festivals such as the New York Film Festival, International Film Festival Rotterdam, and Berlinale. Nguyen is a recent recipient of the 2023 Guggenheim fellowship and lives and works in New York.

All images courtesy of the artist.