Lai Dieu Ha

Lại Diệu Hà was born into a family of artists in Thái Nguyên and graduated from the Vietnam University of Fine Arts in 2005. Recognised as one of Vietnam’s leading performance artists, her work has often sparked public debate. Hà uses her own body as a point of departure, testing its limits while inviting audiences to participate and reconsider the roles they assume. Her visceral performances explore pain, the social constraints placed on the female body and the possibilities of bodily transformation. Working across painting, sculpture, installation, photography and video, she examines trauma and aspects of psychological life often overlooked in contemporary society. Across these media, she returns to the cycles of life and death, creation and destruction.

Selected exhibitions include We Exist in the Ambivalence of Those Motherfuckers (Performance Space New York, New York, 2026), Who is Weaving the Sky Net? (Yeo Workshop, Singapore, 2025), Weaving Perspectives with Rosemarie Trockel (The Outpost Art Center and the Vietnamese Women's Museum, Hanoi, 2024), Cong ăn cong, thẳng ăn thẳng (APD Center for Art Patronage and Development, Hanoi, 2022), Undefined Boundaries (Heritage Space, Hanoi, 2017), Psychodrama Therapy (Rapid Pulse International Performance Art Festival, Chicago, 2014), Mind, Flesh, Matter (Sàn Art, Ho Chi Minh City, 2014) and LIMDIM (Oslo, 2009).

Hà has participated in performance art festivals and programs including Morning – Noon – Afternoon – Evening, 4th Quarter Report and Too many people at the border (Á Space, Hanoi, 2022–2024), IN Performance Art Festival (Nhà Sàn Studio & Nhà Sàn Collective, Hanoi, 2010, 2011, 2019 and 2022), and the 14th Nippon International Performance Art Festival (Yokohama, Nagano and Tokyo, 2009). In 2023, she received the Silver Prize in the UOB Painting of the Year competition.