Trained and licensed as an architect, Quynh Vantu does not discern between architecture and art. Her work explores our physical relationship to the built environment and how we interact with our spatial surroundings. Drawing from her upbringing in the American “South”, Vantu's work stems from influences of porch culture and “southern hospitality”, enacting social virtues and exchanges in the architectural interventions she creates. Through spatial experimentation she torques transitional spaces – hallways, thresholds, stairways – into condensed social exchanges, compressed physical negotiations or as a transformative lens to re-evaluate our routine environment.
During her residency at the Center, Vantu will focus on developing concepts for her forthcoming exhibition at the Center (January 24 – March 22, 2014) building upon her current research related to the “threshold” in architecture using the Center as a laboratory for spatial experimentation to explore how this architectural element, the most active space within architecture, ushers us in and out of spaces and offers opportunities for engagement with the built environment.
Vantu has won numerous awards and grants including: a Worldstudio AIGA Grant, a Stewardson Kefee LeBrun Travel Grant-AIA NY to travel in Switzerland and research at the ETH-Zürich Switzerland, an Artist Residency at the Villa Sträuli in Winterthur, Switzerland, an Artist Residency at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha, Nebraska USA, a DAAD Scholarship to attend Olafur Eliasson’s Institute für Raumexperimente in Berlin, Germany, an Artist Residency at the Gyeonggi Creation Center in South Korea, an Artist Residency at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Skowhegan, Maine USA, an Artist Residency at DordtYart in Dordrecht, The Netherlands, and a J.William Fulbright Fellowship for the United Kingdom.
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