Prosthetic Memory by Alison Nguyen to debut at Art Basel Hong Kong: Encounters

March 26–30, 2025

Convention & Exhibition Centre, 1 Harbour Road, Wan Chai, Hong Kong, China

Presented by gdm, Alison Nguyen's Prosthetic Memory will debut at Art Basel Encounters in Hong Kong. Prosthetic Memory is an installation involving two multichannel video works which explore the relationship between media, individual histories, and the politics of cultural memory. This includes the premiere of Aisle 9, a new film by Alison Nguyen.

Aisle 9 is a work of speculative fiction which deals with cultural memory, censorship, and subversion of state censorship. Set in the near future, a family-owned hosiery company rents out part of its factory space to avoid further employee layoffs and possible foreclosure. Amidst the haze of dire economic times, things take a turn for the better when their storage ad is answered and a startup company rents a large vacant space in the warehouse. Strange boxes begin flooding in at unpredictable times and in large volumes.

The warehouse crew, a tight-knit group of misfits, become annoyed at the erratic nature of the workflow. Discontent spreads throughout the staff; at night they play archery in the warehouse aisles and smoke and speculate as to what is happening with the influx of boxes. One night an arrow sails into Aisle 9 where the new tenant’s boxes are stored. With their interest piqued, they open the tenant’s boxes and find that they are full of government censored material.

Apprehensive, a worker drags over a monitor for the rest to watch the censored material and they dread what kind of political content they might see. Much to their surprise the censored material is that of everyday life – video diaries, home movies, artist films, and prosumer content. At night the staff slowly begin to turn Aisle 9 into viewing stations where they take in the censored materials and memories pass through the screen.

Photo Credit: Ben Salesse

Art Basel Hong Kong: Film Program

Film | Cyborg Within

2024: Alison Nguyen - every dog has its day

March 30, 2025, 5:30pm - 6:30pm (Hong Kong)

Auditorium, N101B, Level 1, Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Centre, Wan Chai

every dog has its day, 2019, by Alison Nguyen will be included in the ‘Cyborg Within’ film program at Art Basel Hong Kong.

Poised at the intersection of humanity and technology, 'Cyborg Within' unveils the profound ways in which machines are reshaping our very essence – our capacity to remember, perceive, communicate, labor, and even exist. A kaleidoscope of imagery unfolds, weaving together speculative fiction, unearthed archives, propagandist parody, and documentary realism interwoven with digital artistry. This tapestry reflects a multifaceted world where the organic blurs with the mediated, and the individual dissolves into the collective, ultimately uncovering both the uncanny beauty and the simmering tension inherent in our hybrid existence.

2024 George Lin Best Emerging Filmmaker Award

George Lin Best Emerging Filmmaker Award

2024: Alison Nguyen - History As Hypnosis

November 9, 2024

The 25th Annual San Diego Asian Film Festival (SDAFF) proudly announced its 2024 award winners during the Filmmaker Awards Gala. The event took place on November 9, 2024, at EVE in San Diego, where honors were given across multiple categories, celebrating the excellence in Asian and Asian American filmmaking. The awards ceremony honors filmmakers whose creative storytelling amplifies diverse Asian and Asian American voices in cinema. 

Highlights include the Grand Jury Prize, Special Jury Mention, and the George C. Lin Emerging Filmmaker Award. An independent jury of filmmakers, curators, critics, and academics selected the winners. In addition to recognizing outstanding films, the event honored key figures in the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community.

Acquisitions to MIT List's Permanent Collection

2024: Acquisitions of MIT List Visual Arts Center, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Alison Nguyen: history as hauntology (process), 2024, and I am screenless and I am wireless, 2022

history as hauntology (process), 2024, archival pigment print on metallic rag in aluminum artist's frame, framed: 13 5/8 x 17 5/8 x 2 in. (34.61 x 44.77 x 5.08 cm.)

I am screenless and I am wireless, 2022, gold on rag, framed: 6 x 8 x 1 in. (15.24 x 20.32 x 2.54 cm.)

09.02.24 - 09.06.24 EMAP x Frieze Film Seoul 2024

EMAP x Frieze Film Seoul 2024

CHAPTER 1: A Question of Quantum Entanglement 

Curated by Joowon Park and Valentine Umansky

September 2 – 6, 2024

Alison Nguyen, my favorite software is being here, 2021, 20 min

For the third year in a row, Frieze Film returns to Frieze Seoul 2024. This year’s programme is in partnership with Ewha Media Art Presentation (EMAP), on view from 2-6 September at Ewha Womans University and online at frieze.com. 

Curated by Joowon Park and Valentine Umansky, this year’s programme is titled ‘All that Weaves the Universe: Of Quantum Entanglements’. It brings together time-based media works of 37 international artists, unfolding under 8 chapters.


CHAPTER 2 - Longing & Belonging

These four films deal with the possible subversions of digital space, raising questions around identity and surveillance, in direct or symbolic ways. While Dineo Seshee Bopape’s is i am sky offers the possibility of cosmic infinity as a frontier for Black liberation, Alison Nguyen’s and Vitória Cribb’s works raise concerns about contemporary forms of oppression, through the generalization of digital mechanisms of control.

Together, the four works reflect ways of finding – unmonitored – spaces to connect in today’s age. They aptly emphasize how the interplay between capitalism and technology has driven economic inequality and exploitative dependency and offer possibilities of liberation through the blurring of identity markers and the construction of alternate universes.