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MAYA NGUYEN


Based in Chicago, b. 1996, VN/RUS, Interdisciplinary Performer. Nguyen incorporates disparate (and often clashing) material sources into forms that remain conceptually indeterminate, such as performance lectures, sound improvisation, and participatory sculptural interventions. Her favored materials include: speech fragments, mistranslations, painful sounds, urban recordings, sounds imitating nature sounds, breast pump parts, internet debris, and videos of daily life.
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︎︎︎SOUND ESSAY: A DIASPORIC MAKING
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sound

I HEAR YOU CAN MAKE A HELICOPTER SOUND WITH A FLOWER


Performance with helicopter foley, domestic instruments, ideological speeches, memes, and curated sound effects (40min)

A Village Before Us
John David Mooney Foundation
Chicago, US Nov 2023

Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project
Convivium 33 Gallery
Cleveland, US May 2024

Night School
Kiosk
Chicago, US Feb 2026

Lateral Entrant
 Goethe-Institut 
Chicago, US Jun 2026

︎︎︎https://youtu.be/ru8XUmciwiE (clip 1)
︎︎︎https://youtu.be/3uR6vePG5Ns (clip 2)
︎︎︎ https://youtu.be/KcM8YnedUXQ (full)



At the intersection of foley practice, cinema sound, and meme aesthetics, this performance explores the sonic structure of trauma, Hollywood portrayals of the Vietnam War, and cultural soft power through sound. This work takes as its starting point the iconic helicopter scene from Francis Ford Coppola’s film Apocalypse Now in which a full-scale US air assault is executed on a Vietnamese village with Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries (Walkürenritt) playing on loudspeakers. And it asks: In a rapidly evolving media environment, how do we depict, listen, and respond to the pain of others?