01/06/2026
This week sprawled across the facade is Lucy Nguyễn-Hunt’s things I can’t say / những điều tôi không thể nói (2021), returning as part of TEN.
Bringing together works from artists in the Outer Space community from the last decade, the exhibition traces histories, captures moments in time, and speaks to the complexities of identity, memory, and belonging.
Lucy Nguyễn-Hunt, an interdisciplinary Vietnamese and Samoan/Cook Islander Australian artist with an abiding passion for sharing lived experiences through a cultural dialogue, shares “I outed myself to my mother through my own very ~gay~ art on Brunswick street, and when I was met with the opposite of “I love you no matter what”, I felt the pain so strongly it broke the fake ID I had assumed for so long. The colonial binaries of memory forbid me from perceiving the event or what it truly was; healing and heart-breaking. When I think of location through a q***r lens, I think of the duality of q***r trauma and affirmation that can exist within a space; an experience that is liminal and not always, but sometimes complicated. things I can’t say / những điều tôi không thể nói sees Vietnamese signage and store fronts as a façade, but also barriers and thresholds. A facade of glimmering neon desire is barricaded by Vietnamese/English reflections and sentiments, as well as questions posed in the past. As an intersectional identity existing somewhere between Australia and across oceans, I lack the words to express my true self or describe q***r experiences in my mother’s tongue. What implications does this create in self-expression, validation, and belonging?”
Visible nightly from 5:30PM-11:30PM until 4 June 📍 420 Brunswick St, Fortitude Valley QLD 4006
Translation Credits: Ashley Van, Joyce Cheng, Linda Nguyễn, Tram Phan, Trí Thanh Nguyễn and Vân Nguyễn-Hunt. 📸Documentation Cian Sanders
