Hùng Lê

“Hùng Lê is an interdisciplinary artist born in Đồng Nai, Việt Nam. Immigrating to the United States from a young age shaped a complex and multifaceted sense of identity that has been a generative force in their thinking and studio practice. Memories are fragile and can easily be manipulated, making it an essential site of investigation to consider not only what we choose to remember but also what we actively choose to forget. Because of this, research serves as the foundation within their practice to investigate how personal memory is retained within objects, photographs, and oral traditions, compared to how collective or national memory is created and preserved through education, archives, and propaganda. Utilizing fabric, images, and found objects, layered with laser engraving and indigo dyeing, memories are excavated and manifest as installations, piecings, and collages. Through these processes, personal and collective memories become physical spaces where their credibility is questioned, modified, and pieced back together.

Lê received their BFA and Asian Studies Certificate from the Kansas City Art Institute in 2022. They have received multiple awards, including the Ann W. and Spencer T. Olin-Chancellor’s Fellowship in 2026, the Charlotte Street Visual Artist Award in 2025, the Windgate-Lamar Fellowship Award in 2022, the Jesse-Howard Fellowship in 2022, and the Charlotte Street Foundation Studio Residency in 2022. ”