Work samples

  • Do it for me

    "Do it for me" is a site-specific performance happening at Area 405. Taking inspiration from the action of doing laundry carried out by the artist's mother, the performance plays with stereotypes and actions associated with gendered roles. The performance uses water, laundry tub, clothes and on-site materials.  

  • Sentient Sediment

    Sentient Sediment Site-specific performance for small groups of audience. St.Mark Lutheran Church. 2023 Sitting in a circle, the audience is guided by the performer, embodying a rock, to contemplate what they are holding onto. Using metaphor of geological process, singing and movement, the performer asks the human to contemplate their personal transformation in relation to the transformation of the earth.

  • After/life (song) cycle (excerpt)

    Performance video. Full HD. Stereo sound. 2022.

    Interpolating a series of Vietnamese Buddhist and Catholic prayers in a multimedia performance of chanted voice and movement, “After/life (song) cycle” is a profound meditation on being.

  • Song as a Battlefield (excerpt)

    Documentary. Full HD, color, stereo sound. 

    "Du Mục" is a Vietnamese song written by anti-war composer Trịnh Công Sơn that the artist listened to as a childhood lullaby. Reinterpreting the song’s haunting lyrics, the documentary grapples with the history of cultural censorship by both sides of the Vietnam war, war-inflicted trauma and inherited memory. The film weaves together site-specific, embodied re-performance of the song, family's oral history, re-telling of the artist's uncle experience as a Vietnam war veteran and archival footages.

About Bao

Bao Nguyen (they/them) is an experimental vocalist and performance artist born in Vietnam and based in Baltimore. Through performance, sound, video and interactive media, Bao’s practice creates empathetic connections between ourselves, each other and the landscape.

Bao completed their BFA at Maryland Institute College of Art and is pursuing their MFA at University of Maryland, Baltimore County. They have exhibited in the U.S and abroad, including shows at Museum of Contemporary Art… more

Jump to a project:

Do it for me

Live perforamnce at Area 405, in conjunction with Red Rae's "Paradise Portals" exhibition. Video by Re Orr.  2025

Taking inspiration from the action of doing laundry carried out by the artist's mother, the performance plays with stereotypes and actions associated with gendered roles. The performance uses water, laundry tub, clothes and on-site objects, reimagining  femininity and wetness as unruly matters. 

  • Do it for me

    "Do it for me" is a site-specific performance happening at Area 405. Taking inspiration from the action of doing laundry carried out by the artist's mother, the performance plays with stereotypes and actions associated with gendered roles. The performance uses water, laundry tub, clothes and on-site materials.  

I am a tree in your life

I am a tree in your life is series of one-on-one performances that explores the similarities between trees and humans. The performance was staged in the Ivy Bookstore garden, formerly belonging to Divine Life Church. I performed as a tree spirit who played hide-and-seek with the audience as a way to co-learn how to be a tree. By asking the audience to remember their memories of trees and inviting them in theatrical vignettes that explores the way trees grow, struggle, excrete and wilt, I am a tree in your life seeks to learn from trees’ way of transgressing preconceived boundaries between the self and the environment. 

Credit:

Conceived and Performed by Bao Nguyen
Dramaturgy by Susan Stroupe 
Photo documentation by Lianghong Ke
Costume design by Sarah Leiva 
Special thanks to Hannah Fenster, the Divine Life Church community, an anonymous Divine Life Church member and Swami Shankarananda 

  • I am a tree in your life
    I am a tree in your life
  • I am a tree in your life
    I am a tree in your life
  • I am a tree in your life
    I am a tree in your life
  • I am a tree in your life
    I am a tree in your life
  • I am a tree in your life
    I am a tree in your life
  • I am a tree in your life
    I am a tree in your life
  • I am a tree in your life
    I am a tree in your life
  • I am a tree in your life
    I am a tree in your life
  • I am a tree in your life
    I am a tree in your life