Vănguard was established in 2014 as an underground, transnational zine connecting and uplifting LGBTQ+ Vietnamese creatives around the world through art, literature, and activism.
A decade later, Vănguard has evolved into a publishing house and creative production company dedicated to promoting LGBTQ+ and femme Vietnamese artists, and bringing Vietnamese art to the world.
Vănguard is exhibited internationally and archived by the Library of Congress.
mission
mission
timeline
timeline
Exhibited at DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities (Washington DC)
Release of Vănguard 6
Exhibited at Schwules Museum (Berlin)
Vănguard is officially incorporated as Vănguard LLC
Featured as speaker at University of Connecticut (Storrs)
Featured at "Who Belongs Here? Who Doesn't" exhibition (Boston)
Hosted a 2-day Queer Viet Retreat (Boston)
Recognizing grassroots arts publications and media outlets in Boston (City of Boston)
Featured as speaker at Fulbright University Vietnam (Hanoi)
Exhibited at UMass Boston - "Dot Now" (Boston)
Exhibited at Sasaki - 'REFLECTED' (Watertown)
Featured as panelist at UMass Boston - 'Asian American Artists in Dorchester' (Boston)
Featured as panelist at MIT - 'Technologies of Resistance - Archiving for Feminist Futures' (Cambridge)
Hosted Zine Workshop at Northeastern University (Boston)
Release of Vănguard 5
Queer to the Front (Dig Boston)
exhibition at Dot Art Project called ‘the epicenter of queer Vietnamese art’ (Dorchester Reporter)
Vănguard Zine LGBTQ Vietnamese Activism on Exhibit (DVAN)
'Dot Now' exhibition reflects artists' keen sense of community
Exhibited at Lawndale Art Center (Houston)
Archived by the Library of Congress
Featured in the Global Encyclopedia of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ)
Vietnamese & Unapologetically Queer (Neocha)
Exhibited at IA&A At Hillyer (Washington DC)
Exhibited at NY Queer Zine Fair (New York)
Exhibited at MA Feminist Zine Festival (Boston)
Exhibited at National Queer API Conference (San Francisco)
Featured in RICE documentary (Ho Chi Minh City)
Archived at inpages (Ho Chi Minh City)
Archived at Hanoi Zine Library (Hanoi)
Release of Vănguard 4
Added to the Southeast Asian Archive collection at UC Irvine
Release of Vănguard 3
Unpacking the Linguistic Legacies of Colonization (Masq Magazine)
BBP Hosmillo interview Aiden Nguyen (Queer Southeast Asia)
Vănguard The Vietnamese LGBTQ Literary & Art Zine (The Pacific Center)
Local LGBTQ Zine Launches Crowdfunding Campaign, Call for Submissions (Saigoneer)
Starting a Queer Revolution (DVAN)
Exhibited at UC Santa Barbara Glass Box Gallery (Isla Vista)
Exhibited at SF Camerawork (San Francisco)
Exhibited at Singapore Art Book Fair (Singapore)
Featured as speakers at the US Consulate - American Center (Ho Chi Minh City)
Featured as speaker at Oberlin College (Oberlin)
Featured as panelist at Simmons College (Boston)
Release of Vănguard 2
Vănguard Giving a Voice to Saigon’s LGBT Artists (Saigoneer)
Exhibited at Nhà Sàn Collective (Hanoi)
Exhibited at Dia Projects (Ho Chi Minh City)
Featured at San Francisco State University (San Francisco)
Archived at the Papercut Zine Library (Boston)
team
team
they/them
Aiden is an art producer, community organizer, and entrepreneur who uses art as a platform to unite and uplift the LGBTQ+ Vietnamese community. They are best known for co-founding Vănguard and the Queer Vietnamese Film Festival.
he/any
Miles Hiroshi Huỳnh is a graphic designer obsessed with the tangible world—textural muck and grime, ink spills and bleeds, handwriting and chicken scratches. He attributes this infatuation to being born and raised in Saigon, a city where the visual landscape is unrelenting—there’s always something compelling wherever the eye lands.
she/they
Hà Trang is a Project Manager at Vănguard, overseeing the coordination and execution of art projects and events. She has a background in production design, exhibition planning, and working with creative teams.
he/him
Toan is a Saigon-based graphic designer with a deep appreciation for the power of typography. His work straddles the line between chaotic and functional design, and he thrives when given the freedom to experiment with ideas and push boundaries.
they/them
Vy is a multimedia artist, cultural weaver, and community educator based in Hanoi, Vietnam. After spending 8 years in the U.S. working with diverse communities to foster connection, collaboration, and collective well-being, Vy returned to Vietnam, where their practices are deeply rooted in building meaningful, long-term relationships with grassroots and local communities. Through their art, cultural practices, and educational work, Vy inspires expression, solidarity, and community-building with a focus on collective healing. They believe in the transformative power of art to create spaces for learning, dialogue, and shared growth, and are dedicated to amplifying marginalized voices and nurturing collective strength.
they/it
Nhi is a self-proclaimed pervert, perhaps in a way that scandalizes, but more often in a way that interrogates. As a multidisciplinary artist, their practice traverses mediums to blasphemously center the body as a site of dissent and possibility, suspended between violence and desire, discipline and decay. In their works, perversion is not a transgression for its own sake, but a form of clarity in which repression sustains the dominant order. To them, being a pervert is to reject the moral choreography demanded by culture as perversion resists purification, not out of defiance alone, but since the cost of being palatable is erasure.
they/them
I'm Phát Paris, a multi-passionate multimedia artist from Saigon, I always yearn to expand my experiences with art - constantly seeking opportunities to encounter something new. With the posters I create, each one is a unique moment, a piece that may never be repeated. But it is precisely that which drives me to continuously create wonders - through textures, through emotion, through intuition.
they/them
To Linh, art is always something along the lines of salvation - where the last gestures of kindness can still be found. So they strive to come and see more, to hear and to know, only to give form to what they've encountered, creating works others can see, touch, and feel. Years of working in the publishing field are not just their ground, but their pulse - an endless motivation to shape beauty into being, again and again.
he/him
Xuân-Tùng Lê is a communication specialist and journalist based in Hanoi. With professional media experience across the press, cultural institutions, and grassroots queer organizing, Tùng has built a career translating complex stories into impactful arts and culture campaigns. His writing - centered on queer lives and Vietnam’s shifting cultural landscape -has been featured in Al Jazeera, C4 Journal, and Matca Magazine.
THEY/THEM
Nu is a Saigonese New York-based artist. They have always been urged by the tremendous longings from both cities to create arts in hopes of an identity. Their photography is spontaneous and intimate, to the interpretations of one's own.