Interview with Lucy Nguyen-Hunt: Co founder of Anthem ARI

Myf: We are joined by Lucy Nguyen-Hunt, one of the co-founders of Anthem ARI. Anthem aims to provide a dedicated platform for First Nations, diasporic and LGBTQI+ identifying artists of colour in Australia and specifically Meanjin (Brisbane). Anthem currently has their second group show ‘Old Haunts’ on view at Metro Arts.

Can you tell us a little bit about how Anthem ari formed?

Lucy: This is an interesting story because perhaps if COVID had not happened, Anthem might not have been formed. It was started by myself and 4 of my other close friends. It began out of shared trauma and bonding over experiences of being people of colour (POC) growing up navigating the arts world being emerging artists. Finding ourselves within institutions through studying but also becoming exhibiting artists as well. Navigating that space and realising how different we were but how similar a lot of our experiences were to one another. We are all from different cultural backgrounds and walks of life but it’s really special to be able to find empathy with other people and spread that through the community.

We are all recent graduates, some have gone on to do masters and PhDs as well but we are all still emerging for sure.

Myf: This is your second group show with Anthem ari expanding on themes of cultural and institutional critique reappropriating aesthetics from colonial preservation and museology. This is something that has arisen quite naturally in all of your practices. Do you see yourselves expanding on this further.

Lucy: Definitely, I think the overarching theme for all of us is decolonization and doing this through the subversion of institutional objects and display. I think specifically for this show ‘Old Haunts’ we were looking into the way POC art and cultural objects throughout history have been harvested from their original environments and then placed into these sterile, white cube spaces. We were looking into the way this still haunts us today and the lingering effects of institutional racism and colonial violence. That’s what we are really trying to investigate as a group through our individual works. I think it’s interesting that even though we are having this really broad discussion about institutional objects and the white cube, a lot of our works tend to be very personal and they investigate personal architectures as well as how we exist in these spaces.

Myf: A lot of the work draws on really specific and personal experiences and feels really powerful especially as a viewer being able to see a single defining moment from childhood. Have you found this to be a reoccurring tool for communication in your work?

Lucy: Yes! Specifically within my practice I feel like I’ve developed a bit of a trauma bond with my practice. I’m alway investigating where this specific experience come from. The body and mind is an archive and I really like to investigate that within my own work. But it’s definitely something that we all do as a collective and nothing exists in a vacuum so it’s kind of like all of our experiences correlate to one another despite our differences and there is a lot of depth to that. So I think collaborating through the artwork strengthens that connection further.

Myf: You said earlier that you have a trauma bond with your practice - do you then find it tiresome when you are constantly engaging with themes that are linked to a great source of pain?

Lucy: I’m coming into a space where being an artist is now my job and with that I then deal with ethical dilemmas often about selling work that is so personal and that is often drawing on pain. Things like that do come into play and it can be exhausting but I also wouldn’t have it any other way. I do also like to take the focus off POC traumas as well. I think we have a lot to celebrate and coming together as Anthem ARI has been a real celebration for us. Exploring the beauty of having such rich culture and history even if it is tainted.

Myf: I was interested to know how it was for you working with Metro Arts given the themes in your show and considering is such an important institution in the brisbane arts community

Lucy: I’ve always enjoyed working with Metro Arts. I think that they are really great because they have always been so open to experimental work. But I guess there is always a facade that exists in the white cube and it is still an institution. It’s hard to escape that as emerging artists that want our work to be recognised by audiences. That has been an ongoing issue for us.

Part of tackling that though is also taking agency over the display of our work and really taking control of how our work is being seen and presented. That also means us becoming curators, organisers and administrators behind the scenes as well. That has also been a really great experience curating and co-curating exhibitions with Keemon Williams and Reina Takeuchi. It definitely comes down to taking control over our narratives.

Old Haunts by Anthem ARI was on view at Metro arts from the 5th - 26th of June. To keep up to date find them on instagram @ANTHEM.ARI