Tran T. Kim-Trang

Tran T. Kim-Trang is a Vietnamese-American artist who lives and works in Los Angeles. She works across multiple media, including video, new media, and installation. Major themes in her works include visual dynamics, immigration, biotechnology, and relationships to technology. She has exhibited work at the Museum of Modern Art (1999) and the Whitney Biennial (2000). Tran is a Professor of Art and Media at Scripps College in Claremont, California.

The Blindness Series is a series of eight experimental videos that deals with the theme of blindness and vision, produced between 1992 and 2006. In her artist statement Tran mentions the importance of vision for artists and her fear of becoming blind as motivating the work. Additionally, she has stated that the series was inspired in part by an exhibition curated by Jacques Derrida, Memoirs of the Blind, which used works from the Louvre’s collection that dealt with blindness. Each video addresses a different topic related to blindness and vision, and do not necessarily need to be viewed in order, as they are related thematically rather than by a progressing narrative.

The first installment, Alethia, introduces the topics explored in the seven other videos of the series. It begins with an extreme close-up shot of braille, paired with the sound of screeching string instruments. Drawing from both theoretical texts and popular culture, the video examines the role of eyes and vision in relation to race, gender, and sexuality. It juxtaposes video and audio clips, such as images of Asian eyes and a punk song repeating the phrase “Lights out! Poke your eyes out!”, and various voice clips expressing racialized views of Asians related to eyes. Another scene pairs audio from Working Girls describing a sexual fantasy about blindness with a video clip of the female protagonist from 9½ Weeks engaging in blindfolded sex, with superimposed theoretical and literary text related to sight/blindness and sexual desire. Tran states that the work’s non-linear structure is intended to reflect the process of visual perception and cognition. The multi-layered, collage-like editing is also typical of video art of the 1990s.

Movements: Battles and Solidarity is a three-channel video installation “exploring the connections between women of color and their shared socio-political and physical 'movements,'” comparing the Vietnam War, the fashion industry, and labour movements of the early 1970s. The work was installed as part of the exhibition To View A Plastic Flower at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery in February 2020.

Tran was born in Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City), Vietnam in 1966. She moved to the United States in 1975, at the age of nine. Tran received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from University of Iowa, and her Master of Fine Arts from California Institute of the Arts. In addition to her current position at Scripps College, Tran has taught art and media-related courses at multiple institutions in California since the mid-1990s, including University of California, Irvine; University of California, San Diego; Otis College of Art and Design; and California Institute of the Arts.