Through a delicate and unique perspective, stemming from the intersection of art and fashion photography, Nhu Xuan Hua (a French artist of Vietnamese heritage) ruminates on how the past echoes through time, conveying the fragility of stories transmitted across generations. Within her oeuvre, she captures memory not as a pragmatic science, but as a line that dissolves and reappears in different shapes, forms, and colours. In this framework, the images are orchestrated to make up for the silence that surrounded the photographer’s household for years. Hosted by Autograph in London, her new solo show, Of Walking on Fire, open until 19 September, spans two galleries.
Gallery 1 defines the void Hua felt in relation to her historical heritage during the early years of her life; in Gallery 2, the space unfolds as a site of renewal centred around the reconfiguration of that silence. The former is rooted in the language barriers that led to an inability to fully convey complex family stories. Hua’s photographs take us on a journey of rewriting her family’s time in Vietnam and their early years in the West following the outbreak of the Vietnam War. Through a series of surreal and oneiric compositions, characterised by a precise technique of digital manipulation, Hua shows how memory fragments and fades within the diaspora.
There was no common language in the household; her father was oral-deaf, and both of her parents were intent on “keeping the past in the past”. This communication void became the starting point for the artist’s development of her creative expression. Throughout the first segments of the exhibition, the artist constructs a dense visual atmosphere, as the photographs are juxtaposed with trinkets, objects, and flower vases arranged on ornamental shelves, evoking the visual language of Vietnamese temples. In addition, on a more personal level, the painted shadows allude to the quiet architecture of the family home.
Gallery 2 unravels as a reawakening cosmos, where missed conversations and gaps now gather strength. Drawing on Đạo Mẫu, an indigenous Vietnamese belief system centred on the worship of Mother Goddesses, Hua traces a lineage of her maternal figures. At the heart of the gallery, the photographer displays a brand-new work, Little Super in Versailles – Archive from the year ’88, in which she portrays a young girl as a powerful symbolic figure carrying the weight of inherited histories. The artist uses this representation of womanhood to express the resilience required to construct and sustain the emotional bridge that unites generations of women.
The culmination of the exhibition weaves together a narrative that fills the blank spaces in Hua’s historical heritage. Through this, the viewer comes to understand that her lens does not frame those gaps as a lack, but rather as a restorative force.
With Of Walking on Fire, Nhu Xuan Hua sends the audience a curative and optimistic message, drawing on the fragile subject of diasporic heritage. Through a creative and groundbreaking display of images, positioned between the contradictions of presence and erasure within the afterimage of the past, she reveals her journey of healing and comprehension of her roots, as well as her process of beginning to draw lines that have long been blurred.
The exhibition Of Walking on Fire by Nhu Xuan Hua is on view through 19 September at Autograph, 1 Rivington Place, London.
Nhu Xuan Hua, The one who couldn’t talk, 2021
Nhu Xuan Hua, Singer “How much love can be repeated?”, Honey baby, 2020
Nhu Xuan Hua, Promise of Spring, 2026. Commissioned by Autograph, London
Nhu Xuan Hua, I won’t change because you asked, 2019
Nhu Xuan Hua, We spend days inside tiny apartments and we enjoy a fake concrete canal, 2020
Nhu Xuan Hua, Tata Canada, 2026. Commissioned by Autograph, London