Bio+Contact
About
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Nguyen at one of her “offices” for a photoshoot feature on KQED ARTS Bay Brilliant ( photo: Jean Melesaine )
““Quynh has a knack for bringing together diverse groups through creative expression. Her place-based approach to community building is an invaluable asset to the multicultural arts eco-system in the Silicon Valley. Increasingly, Quynh’s work has taken a social justice bent with her creative placemaking endeavors serving as a platform for women and other underrepresented groups. I can personally attest to the quality and consistency of her work.””
About
Quynh-Mai Nguyen ( she / her / chi / em )
Quynh-Mai Nguyen (sounds like gwin-my win) is a Vietnamese-American, multidisciplinary social practice artist, visual storyteller, poet, musician, and creative producer. She has over 10 years of hands-on, on-the-ground experience in designing, producing, and community organizing for arts and culture. Her early career started as a design intern and production assistant for Left Coast Live, a local music festival in San José. Nguyen’s passion for nurturing the arts and culture has grown since then and has allowed her opportunities to work with different communities and on different projects in varied capacities.
She was the former art director for Kooltura Marketing, marketing consultant and community organizer for SV-Debug, co-producer for All-Womxn’s Showcase, executive event producer and graphic designer for Sonido Clash, and graphic designer for the County of Santa Clara Office of LGBTQ Affairs. Nguyen combines her skillsets and community organizing experiences into her social practice in order to create more representation and access for women and people of color to determine and share their own narratives and artifacts through art. Currently, Nguyen is a Creative Director leading campaigns and community engagement efforts for cities and their public art programs across the nation through Art Builds Community, a women-led public art consulting and community engagement team based in San José, CA. Outside of public art consulting, Nguyen is focused on building community and discourse through her art and cultural art programs including Lips Uncurled, Eyes Forward; Lunar X Art Hop; and Waffles’n’Thrift.
In 2018, Nguyen was recognized as a “KQED Arts Bay Brilliant,” a recognition that honors cultural movement workers within the Bay Area. Within the same year, she was also invited to speak on a panel about art, music, and activism in the Bay Area at the Music Expo San Francisco, a nationally-known institution that facilitates dialogue between music makers in the industry. In 2020, Nguyen led a workshop on “Connecting People Through Collective Action,” for the Annual Integrated Learning Conference: Arts in the Classroom at Montalvo Arts Center. In the same year, Nguyen was selected as one of twenty fellows across the nation to represent San José in the 8 80s Emerging City Champions Fellowship.
Nguyen graduated from San José State University with a Bachelor of Science in advertising (creative track) and a minor in graphic design. She is also an alumnus of the Multicultural Arts Leadership Institute (MALI), a leadership fellowship for arts leaders and administrators of color, and a senior urbanism class fellow for the American Leadership Forum (ALF).
““Quynh has an imagination that dares to transform and nurture the world around her through her social art, design, and civil interactions.””
SOCIAL
PRACTICE
Growing up, I wanted to do three things in life:
become Sailor Earth of the Sailor Scouts,
study insects, and
compose for and conduct a symphony.
I approach everything I do with that same compassion, curiosity, and creativity.
Social practice artistry is about designing creative ways of interaction and engagement in society to bring crucial social issues to light in communities with the purpose of ultimately affecting change. My work places heavy emphasis in creating cultural awareness through visual storytelling, arts education ,and wellness through play. As an avid learner through visuals and first-hand experience, my art aims to inspire people of color to share and determine their own narratives rather than be subject to other narratives created for them, and to break the cycle of miseducation that is passed down from generation to generation. I encourage people to create new artifacts in order to replace those that have been outdated, appropriated, or erased by development. I believe that creating cultural awareness and preserving stories through art will foster a more inclusive community of understanding, empathy, and engagement. I also believe in creating and programming spaces that normalizes art experiences in everyday life. Art experiences should be accessible in all communities. I use art, storytelling, and placemaking as catalyst for discourse as well as a conduit for intergenerational healing and joy.
My experiences working in these different communities have always been relationship-based and people-driven. These values have helped me hone a special inside appreciation and understanding of how important it is to invest in local organizations AND people to allow for their communities to thrive. With my passion for design and compassion for people, I understand how to evoke and identify the meaningful purpose behind community building through the arts and hope that it inspires those to create and act with more intention.
