Vo Vo

An immigrant from a (Vietnamese) refugee family, Vo Vo names and diagrams dynamics around imperialism, colonialism, capitalism and oppression.

“I work from an international, populist perspective,” describes the artist, “with an intention to make these concepts approachable, accessible and dialectical.”

Vo’s work spans textiles, installation and social practice that recognizes and provides direct care to contemporary traumas of a “third culture,” and other disenfranchised, displaced and threatened communities. “By operating simultaneously on multiple dimensions – as highly advanced conceptual devices, as low-brow cultural ephemera, and as literal rugs and textile blankets,” says artist and 2024 Hallie Ford Fellow Sam Hamilton, “Vo’s work teases and (gently and lovingly) challenges us to dismantle and analyze our inherited assumptions and value metrics about art, culture, labor, and materiality.”

Vo’s work has recently been included in the 2024 Oregon Artists’ Biennial, Oregon Contemporary, Portland, Oregon; Converge 45, “Social Forms: Art as Global Citizenship”; “Weaving Data,” Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at Portland State University, and, through May 31, 2025, at their solo exhibition with Elizabeth Leach Gallery, Of ev rywh re and n wh re.

They are also an editor, speaker, educator, curator, and musician who has exhibited and toured internationally. They received a Bachelor of Design in Architecture and a Graduate Certification in Design Science (Acoustics and Audio) from the University of Technology, Sydney; and a Master of Fine Arts (Visual Studies) from Pacific Northwest College of Art, Willamette University.