The Crossing

The Crossing is a deeply personal solo exhibition by Vietnamese-French artist Bảo Vương, reflecting on inherited memory, displacement, and the enduring traces of exile. Rooted in his family’s harrowing escape from postwar Vietnam as boat people in the late 1970s, the exhibition meditates on identity through monochrome paintings, immersive installations, and performance.

Through heavy black pigment, layered until near-collapse, Bảo’s paintings evoke the void and violence of open seas—spaces of both danger and fragile hope. At the heart of the exhibition, a sculptural installation of water-filled jars containing floating images—some personal, some anonymous—embodies the fragile boundaries between remembrance and erasure, selfhood and statistic.

Born in Vietnam and raised in France, Bảo’s practice transcends borders and media, engaging with themes of loss, memory, and belonging. The Crossing is not only a tribute to his family’s journey but also a resonant gesture of solidarity with displaced communities everywhere. “Art,” he states, “must be engaged. It has the power to speak when words fail.”