A short video on the common Vietnamese surname ‘NGUYEN’, created by British Vietnamese artist, Kimvi Nguyen. A surname I also share as she is my sister. This is an ongoing personal project of her identity as a British Vietnamese artist, exploring the continuous mispronunciation of the surname. This video was created for Vietnamese artist Moi Tran’s solo show, ‘Civic Sound Archive’ as part of a collection of audio and video recordings.

The short video was made possible by a community of international participants. The video presents a collection of mispronunciations where in-between the voices contain the correct pronunciation. The video gives the listeners the opportunity to hear which one could be the right ‘NGUYEN’

This is a recording of myself pronouncing my own surname as I believe to be the pronunciation of it. Growing up, I was told by my parents to pronounce it like the English word ‘Wing’, as this was the closest pronunciation to it.

Big thank you to all the participants who made this project possible: Ismael Gomez, Freya Port, Zidrija Janusaite, Sera Eke, Israel Barro, Aaron Flores, Ciaran Clarke, Vinny Montag, Sofia Juan, Tracy Dunn, Danny Crawford, Mamen Balboa, Lucy Knight, Bartu Juan, Francisco Quintas, Hania Zawora, Carla Wallace, Madeleine Lohrum Strancari, Fran Montesinos, Tomas Chua, Stefan Moore (+2 anons)

FURTHER INFORMATION

Kimvi Nguyen a British Vietnamese nomadic artist. Working an artist, she is conscious of her physical and creative impact on the environment that she inhabits.