HO CHI MINH CITY—“Sàn” means “platform” in Vietnamese, and in an art scene once largely defined by fragmented communities, a conservative government, and isolation from international debates and practices, Sàn Art — one of Vietnam’s first nonprofit, independently run art spaces, established in Ho Chi Minh City in 2007 by artists Dinh Q. Lê, Tuan Andrew Nguyen, Phu Nam Thuc Ha, and Tiffany Chung — is certainly living up to its name.

Sàn Art has quickly become one of the most important creative platforms in Southeast Asia, elevating the quality of local discussions and the visibility of contemporary Vietnamese art, and bridging geographical distances and generational gaps through its ambitious roster of exhibitions and educational programming. It’s a platform built on the generosity of its founders and their supporters, sustained by the donation of tangible resources as well as immeasurable gifts of time and energy, faith and vision.

On the occasion of the recent appointment of Zoe Butt as curator and director (programs and development) and the organization’s move into a new space earlier this year, ARTINFO spoke with artist and co-founder Dinh Q. Lê to learn more about Sàn Art’s cultural context, history, and future. Lê, who was born in Vietnam but emigrated with his family to California at the age of 10 after the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia in 1978, speaks in particular about bridging the gap between Vietnamese artists and those in the diaspora.

What was the art scene in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) like when you first returned to Vietnam in 1993? What inspired you to get involved?

The biggest and most important part of the art scene in HCMC at the time was the government-supported HCMC Fine Arts Association. They would organize annual exhibitions on national holidays and its members could rent their gallery for group or personal exhibitions. Most of the members were traditional painters. There was no alternative art scene back then; most of the young artists in HCMC were working in isolation. They gathered at the HCMC Fine Arts Association’s events, but were not really working together. At the time, the government was very watchful of southerners. After all, the south was on the wrong side of the war. The artists were scared stiff of the cultural police, which is why the southern artists at the time did not organize themselves to create an alternative scene. They were fearful of being accused of being subversive by the government and didn’t want to end up in jail.

Young artists had started dabbling with performance and installation, but they were basically searching in the dark. There was very little access to information on contemporary art at the time. Internet usage was illegal in Vietnam and the U.S. embargo against Vietnam was still on, so southern artists were completely disconnected from the rest of the world.

The biggest reason I wanted to do something to help was because of the respect I felt for young artists at the time. They were well trained as painters and traditional sculptors and could actually make a decent living by creating works catering to the emerging tourist art market. But they decided to abandon their traditional training and try out installation and conceptual art, even when they had little information on these practices. I thought they were very brave.

As someone who came back to Vietnam [a “Viet Kieu,” or overseas Vietnamese], I did not want the local artists to think that I was trying to take over their territory or, as we say in Vietnamese, dai doi (“teaching them the facts of life”). The challenge was how to get the local artists to trust me and to understand that I was just trying to help.

I remember you initially talking about establishing an art-focused reading room, which eventually became one of Sàn Art’s components.

At the time, I thought I could approach the art community quietly by just opening a reading room. It could be a resource center of information that local artists really needed, and they could come and go as they please. I could hire a librarian to oversee the reading room so I wouldn’t have to be there. My presence in the art scene would be very minimal, not intrusive. But the reading room did not work out because the Rockefeller Foundation in New York could not release the grant to an individual and it was not possible to set up a legally recognized nonprofit organization in Vietnam at that time. I tried hooking up with the Vietnamese cultural organizations in HCMC, but they either thought there was too little financial benefit for them, or worried that a room full of books on contemporary art was potential trouble. I even tried to work with the U.S. State Department Fulbright office in HCMC, and they turned me down. In the end I lost the Rockefeller Foundation grant for the reading room.