James Nguyen: Open Glossary

This multilingual book, published in association with the exhibition James Nguyen: Open Glossary, features artist sketches and process-based images, newly commissioned writing by Fayen d’Evie and Luke King, Nhung Dinh, Stéphanie Kabanyana Kanyandekwe, Do Tuong Linh, Dr Kirsten Lyttle, James Nguyen and Budi Sudarto, Brooke Wandin, and Chris Xu; alongside an artist interview with James Nguyen and curator Shelley McSpedden.

Each book is unique, with the cover of every copy handprinted in one of James Nguyen’s works.

James Nguyen: Open Glossary is presented as part of the Copyright Agency Partnerships series of new commissions supporting mid-career and established visual artists to develop and present a major new body of work. The exhibition expands the solo commissioning focus, featuring Tamsen Hopkinson (Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngāti Pāhauwera), Budi Sudarto, Kate ten Buuren (Taungurung) and Chris Xu working alongside Nguyen on a series of new polyphonic installations presented throughout ACCA’s galleries, as well as an evolving multilingual queer glossary for ACCA’s Digital Wing.

Open Glossary explores the capacity of language to both bind and divide us. Alert to the liveness of lexicons, the exhibition emphasises the ways that words and syntax constantly evolve and transform, marking our connections to others across the specifics of time and place. Conversation is key to Nguyen’s approach, positioning his personal experience and perspective in dialogue with others – family, friends, Vietnamese diasporic and LGBTIQA+ communities, the artworld and its institutions.

Format: Paperback
Publisher: Australian Centre for Contemporary Art
Editor: Elyse Goldfinch
Published: 2023
Pages: 112
ISBN: 978-0-6458328-2-2