Alison Nguyen, a Vietnamese American artist based in New York’s Chinatown, discusses her multidisciplinary practice spanning video, installation, performance, and sculpture. Her works explore American mythologies, visual culture, and digital labor, drawing from low and high culture. Notable pieces include *History as Hypnosis* (2023), which follows three Vietnamese women through a desert and downtown Los Angeles, and *My Favorite Software Is Being Here* (2021), featuring an AI assistant named Andra8. Nguyen’s upcoming works *Change Order* (2024) and *Aisle 9* are inspired by her family’s Taiwanese hosiery business archives. She is featured in ARTnews’ 2025 “New Talent” issue.
This profile matters because it highlights an emerging artist who critically engages with AI, diaspora identity, and the politics of labor in the digital age. Nguyen’s work challenges simplistic narratives about technology and ethnicity, urging viewers to embrace alterity and question surface-level readings of both history and contemporary media. Her inclusion in the “New Talent” issue signals her rising significance in the contemporary art world.