In this episode, Dispatch talks to an artist Diane Severin Nguyen about her latest exhibition, the meaning behind its philosophical title, and how she deals with the ambiguity and politics of images through merging history, narration, and subversion of the identity and symbols. 

Diane Severin Nguyen was born in California in 1990. She is an artist who uses photography and time-based media. Her photography hybridizes the organic and the synthetic into amalgam sculptures, held together by the parameters of a photographic moment, and her video work expands that moment into a layered cultural and historical context. Nguyen earned an MFA from Bard College and a BA from Virginia Commonwealth University. Recent solo and two-person exhibitions include IF REVOLUTION IS A SICKNESS, SculptureCenter, New York; Between Two Solitudes, Stereo, Warsaw; Tyrant Star, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; Reoccurring Afterlife, Empty Gallery, Hong Kong; Minor twin worlds, with Brandon Ndife, Bureau, New York. Her video ‘Tyrant Star’ has been screened at Yebisu Festival, Tokyo; IFFR Rotterdam; and the New York Film Festival. Recent select group exhibitions include Made in L.A. 2020, Shanghai Biennale 2021; Metabolic Rift, Berlin Atonal, Berlin, Germany, Greater New York, MoMA PS1. Forthcoming, IF REVOLUTION IS A SICKNESS will be exhibited at the Renaissance Society, Chicago, in May this year.