Due to circumstances this event is postponed. The new date will be announced soon! Check this page for the latest updates.
In September 2022, Huis Marseille will introduce a remarkable new talent to the international public with the first museum exhibition of the French-Vietnamese artist Nhu Xuan Hua. Hua made a name for herself as a photographer for magazines such as Vogue, Marie Claire, DANSK and TIME Magazine and has worked for major fashion brands such as Gucci Beauty, Dior and Levi’s. Yet fashion photography is just one of the areas in which she excels. The Hug of a swan exhibition highlights the versatility of her artistry, which is also expressed in installations and autonomous work, inspired by family photos. The exhibition shows that these categories are in fact inseparable and that the inspiration for each of Hua’s creations comes from a personal and inherited memory.
Sharing the stage this evening with Nhu Xuan Hua is Amsterdam based photographer Gilleam Trapenberg who finds solace in devoting his creative process to exploring his memories of growing up in Curaçao.
While Nhu Xuan Hua (1989, Paris) was undergoing the admission procedure for the art academy in Paris, she studied art history at the University of Paris for a year and then film for a year. In 2011, she completed photography training at the Auguste Renoir art academy in Paris and the following year she moved to London, where she still lives and works for all the major fashion brands. One of her most famous shoots was the 2018 cover of TIME Magazine with the theme of ‘next generation leaders’, for which Hua photographed the K-pop band BTS.
Gilleam Trapenberg (1991, Willemstad, Curaçao) moved to the Netherlands at the age of nineteen and graduated from the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague in 2017. He participated in multiple group exhibitions, such as In The Presence of Absence at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (2020). In 2017 he published his first photo book Big Papi and in 2018 he was one of the nominees for the Foam Paul Huf Award. He’s the fourth recipient of the Florentine Riem Vis grant (2020). His first solo exhibition at Foam, Amsterdam opened in 2021. Gilleam Trapenberg lives and works in Amsterdam.
Through his work, Trapenberg reflects on the contradictions that are part of the social landscape in Curaçao, were the idea of a utopian paradise is diametrically opposed to the realities of post-colonialism and tourism. He explores stereotypes and tropes that have manifested themselves through social culture and the Western media.
Find more information about the Hug of a swan exhibition at Huis Marseille here.
