Visual Artist
Thi My Lien Nguyen • Nguyễn Thị Mỹ Liên
Thi My Lien Nguyen (b. 1995) is a Swiss artist and photographer of Vietnamese descent based in Winterthur, Switzerland.
Her multidisciplinary practice spans photography, moving image, (analog) printmaking, performance, writing, and curatorial work, exploring themes of memory, diaspora, identity, and the connections between food, cultural transmission, and belonging.
Food functions in her work both as medium and as site of inquiry — a space to negotiate questions of identity, migration, and collective memory. Nguyen increasingly works with analog and alternative photographic processes, emphasizing materiality, slowness, and embodied practice. Her work moves between documentary and personal narrative, drawing on traditions, rituals, and folklore to tell stories that resist linear time.
Alongside her artistic practice, Nguyen is part of the curatorial team at Les Complices*, a self-organized off-space in Zurich creating platforms for queer, trans, inter, non-binary, women*, and BIPoC artists. Through (culinary) activations, workshops, and collaborative projects, Nguyen creates spaces of encounter grounded in care, solidarity, and mutual support.
Her work has been exhibited at Kunstmuseum Thurgau (2025), Athens Photo Festival (2024), the 22nd Biennial Sesc_Videobrasil in São Paulo (2023), Museum Haus Konstruktiv Zürich (2023), Fotomuseum Winterthur (2022), and Vincom Center for Contemporary Art, Hanoi (2021). She has completed residencies in London (2024) and Vietnam (2023), with upcoming residencies at MASEREEL (Belgium) and Ano Syros (Greece) in 2026.
Interests
social (engaged) / community art
spaces
archives
practice of sharing
Vietnam and Switzerland
gatherings
zines
publishing
diaspora
rituals
traditions
folklore
love
postcolonialism
riso printing
alternative photographic processes
communal practices
spirituality
poetry
lists
clouds
collages
꧁ talented friends and collaborators ꧂
Kay Zhang
Engy Mohsen
tracy september
Raisa Durandi
Laura Gauch
Lien Pham
Helene Leuzinger
Cédrine Scheidig
Vanessa Drummond
Dylan Wiedler
Janis Polar
Samuel Schalch
Siselabonga
We Do Good
RAAW coffee
SŌNSŌN collective
Gautschi Editions
Arnold Rahmenmanufaktur
VARY