ACAM 2025 | Session 2: Community Programs: Participation with Purpose
02 pm – 05 pm, Fri 26 Sep 2025
COMPLEX 01
29/31/167 Tây Sơn, Hà Nội
Registration link
Deadline for registration: 12 pm, 25 Sep 2025
From Hanoi Grapevine:
Community-based projects are central to many artistic initiatives — but how do we ensure that participation is meaningful rather than performative? This session reflects on the politics and ethics of participation, exploring long-term relationship building, co-creation, and the challenges of maintaining trust. Coordinators working in diverse localities will share their approaches to working with communities without extractive or top-down dynamics.
Topics:
– Building reciprocal relationships with communities
– Avoiding tokenism in participation
– Co-designing with communities, not just for them
– Sustaining engagement beyond the project timeline
Note:
– The program has a limited number of attendees. You will receive a registration confirmation email within 72 hours.
– Participation is FREE OF CHARGE. Each email can only be used to register one person.
– To ensure the program starts on time, the organizers will begin check-in 30 minutes before each session’s official start time.
– By attending, the audience agrees to allow Hanoi Grapevine to use their images and feedback as materials for the program.
– Kindly note that food is not permitted at the event.
About speakers
Nhat Q. Vo (b. 1991, Vietnam) is a cultural worker and multidisciplinary designer based in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. He graduated with a Bachelor in Architecture from California College of the Arts, San Francisco (2015). With an interest in creating education playgrounds and pushing for cultural, artistic developments in Vietnam, his works range from event and space organization to coordination, production, and curation. He often collaborates with individuals and organizations in Vietnam and across Southeast Asia. In 2018, Nhat participated in Bangkok Biennale with Art Labor as a collaborating architect for the project Radicle Room. With the support from Goethe-Institut Ho Chi Minh City and Sàn Art, he released the publication Masked Force with writer Nguyen Hoang Quyen in tandem with a retrospective of Vo An Khanh’s photographic practice (2020). Recently, he curated the exhibition Rhyming Gestures with Thái Hà and initiated PORTFOLIO+ – a series of portfolio review sessions to help local creatives effectively present and develop their portfolios. Nhat is the former manager of Sàn Art and current manager of the Nguyen Art Foundation.
Cai Xun was born in 1991 in Hangzhou, China. Completed a Master’s degree in Media and Cultural Studies at the School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong in 2014. Spent eight years working in Hong Kong at galleries, auction houses, and art management companies, gaining diverse experience across various sectors of the art world. Relocated to Yokohama in 2022 and is currently involved in exhibitions, events, and international exchange programs at the Koganecho Area Management Center, where artists from around the world gather. Also engaged in launching the “Bubba Bubble Collective,” which organizes projects in public bathhouses (sento), and “Moromoro-za,” an initiative focused on alternative film screenings. Through collaboration with peers from various backgrounds, aims to question the boundaries between art and everyday life, and to foster new relationships through cross-disciplinary and transnational practices.
Nguyễn Hoàng Điệp is one of Vietnam’s pioneering independent filmmakers, with 20 years of experience in the film industry. For five years, she directed documentaries on “hot” social topics for Vietnamnet TV, a channel under the Vietnamnet online newspaper. From 2008 onwards, she began producing and directing primetime TV series and sitcoms for the national television station. She also lectured at the Hanoi Academy of Theatre and Cinema for three years before focusing entirely on her own independent film company, VBLOCK Media (later Okia Hanoi film production).
In 2017, she founded Ơ Kìa Hà Nội, a cultural and creative center focused on cinema, literature, heritage, and gender equality. Through a series of art workshops, public events, and artistic gatherings, she connects art with the public and supports independent artists. Nguyễn Hoàng Điệp also established the annual event series Se Sẽ Chứ to honor the poetic legacy of Lưu Quang Vũ and Xuân Quỳnh.
In 2023, she launched a project to preserve and restore forgotten film reels and initiated the “In Film We Love” project to raise public awareness of film heritage. The project received funding from Vietnam’s VinIF Foundation and the international film fund Purin Pictures. In 2024, she was the producer of “Hồn Trương Ba da hàng thịt” (by playwright Lưu Quang Vũ), inviting Japanese director Sugiyama and leading artists from Northern Vietnam’s theater scene to collaborate. The play became a phenomenon in 2024 and won three national medals. The film 1982, which she produced and directed, is currently in post-production and is scheduled for release in 2026.
Vũ Thị Thanh Bình has 10 years of experience in managing creative cultural spaces and organizing and communicating community cultural events. She founded and managed three spaces: Bluebirds’ Nest and The Reading Room in Hanoi, and Cua Bien Creative Cultural Space in Hai Phong. She has also provided operational and communication consulting for various cultural and artistic spaces and projects, including the Kafka Festival (2018–2019), Balade en France (2018–2020), and the Taiwan Film Salon (2020, 2022, 2024).
Her community-focused cultural and artistic practices primarily center on literature, promoting reading culture, cinema, and traditional crafts. In 2024, she participated in the Queer (w)eaves project initiated by the Goethe-Institut in Hanoi and Queer Forever, where she contributed as a fiber artist and had her work featured in a group exhibition in early 2025. Currently, she is organizing the Film Curation Practice Program with Bluebirds’ Nest, which aims to connect individuals and organizations involved in independent film research and production with audiences and cultural spaces in Hanoi.
About Moderator
Lê Võ Thuỳ Dương is an art-based facilitator in personal and community development, helping individuals better understand and cherish their value, as well as live more beautifully through the joy of creative freedom. Dương’s most valued and frequently shared practices include creative writing, dance/movement, drawing, and finding inspiration from nature.
As a people-oriented practitioner, Dương has, over the past 10 years, always placed people at the center of her learning and work—whether in consulting, collaborating with educational institutions, or working with non-governmental organizations such as FPT University and the Institute for Social, Economic, and Environmental Research (iSEE)..
With this approach, she has coordinated and co-created workshops, courses, and projects with a wide range of groups, including female factory workers, ethnic minority communities, and people with diverse disabilities.. Through her contributions and dedication, Dương was selected to join the Arts for Good Fellowship 2022 in Singapore and the Cultural Partnership Initiative 2024 in Korea, alongside representatives from many countries around the world…
About ACAM
ACAM (Arts Coordination Annual Meeting) is the first annual gathering in Vietnam aimed at honoring and strengthening the crucial – yet often unacknowledged – role of art coordinators. These individuals bridge the gap between artists, curators, institutions, and communities — managing timelines, handling permissions, translating cultural sensitivities, and ensuring creative visions are realized.
ACAM 2025 is co-organized by Hanoi Grapevine, Artist-in-Residence Vietnam Network (AiRViNe), COMPLEX 01, Vincom Center for Contemporary Art (VCCA), Hanoi Coordination Center for Creative Activities – Hanoi Creative City, Division of Cultural Heritage Management, Hanoi Culture and Sport Facilities, with support from the AIR Network Japan, Koganecho Area Management Center, Aomori Contemporary Art Center. The program is funded by the Small Grant Program from the Japan Foundation Center for Cultural Exchange in Vietnam, Chau & Co Gallery, Mekong Cultural Hub and School of Interdisciplinary Sciences and Arts (VNU-SIS).
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