Museums

Museum Statement

Thu Anh Nguyen is a Vietnamese Floridian whose parents did not settle in the United States until they found land (and humidity!) that could grow the same fruits as they did in Vietnam. Every story Thu tells as a poet, painter, and educator is in part that immigration story; therefore, Thu’s work centers equity, justice, and community. In her most recent social practice art, Thu shapes poetry while listening to conversations about what makes a flourishing community. She also paints large-scale watercolors and is obsessed with flowers, their symbolism and beauty. She has painted hundreds of floral protest posters for social justice movements such as Black Lives Matter and Say Her Name. 

Thu’s floral murals capture the voices of AANHPI women at Gallery Y in D.C., and the Asian American community at Amphibian Stage in Fort Worth, TX. She is also a published poet whose poetry explores the intersections and tensions between her Vietnamese and American identities. Her writing has been published in Literacy Today, the Southern Humanities Review, the Cider Press Review, and the Crab Orchard Review. When she isn’t painting or writing, you can find her in someone else’s garden, nose in a book, snack in hand. 

The Greatest Poem  

Everything I do is rooted in my Vietnamese American, immigrant experience. When I was very young, I noticed that so many Vietnamese women, including my aunts and cousins, were named after flowers. I knew my name was not a flower. When I asked my father about it, he told me that when he named me, he wanted my name to be more than decorative, and that my name meant “wisdom.” He hoped I would grow up to become a scholar. 


So much of my immigrant experience has been trying to live up to my parents’ expectations–tending to those strong roots they planted–and also growing into myself, and blossoming where I found sun. First, I became a scholar like my father wanted, and I studied and taught poetry. Then, because art has always helped me express my identity most fully, I became a painter. I paint in the language of florals because they are part of the history of my people. Flowers have mythological significance across cultures. In Hamlet, we have rosemary for remembrance and daisies for innocence. Some of us give red roses to symbolize love. Celebrations are often overflowing with flowers.  And when someone is sad or needs comfort, we turn to flowers as well.

in forthcoming book Uncertain Girls in Uncertain Times published by Red Hen Press | May 2025


for Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong | May 2025


CV

forthcoming

Contributing author

forthcoming

Essays

for Soapberry Review | December 2024


for Soapberry Review | August 2024


in Soapberry Review | May 2022


Poetry

“The Long Way”

in Good River Review | April 2025


in Diode | March 2025


in Bellingham Review | February, 2025


in Panorama | 2024


in Revolute Lit | May 2022 | 2024


in Southern Humanities Review | 2021

Awards and Positions

ED Advisory Committee at DC Arts Center in DC | ongoing since March 2025


“The Long Way” Honorable Mention at Bethesda Writer’s Center | March 2025


Pushcart Prize nominee for “We Were Made This Way” published by Revolute | October 2022


Reading Standing Committee Member for the National Assessment on Educational Progress | 2021-2024


Chair of Subcommittee on the Young Adult Book Awards for International Literacy Association | 2022-2024


Staff at the National SEED Project | ongoing since June 2020


Additional Paintings

Floral Spring menus | NUE in VA | October, 2024


Featured Floral Mural | Culture House in DC | September 2024


“The Story of Fruit” | NUE restaurant in VA | July 31, 2024


Floral mural | Sparkfest24 at Amphibian Stage in Fort Worth, Texas | June 7, 2024


Performances and Workshops

Hey! We Need to Talk featured poet at University of Michigan Museum of Art | May 2025

Dialogue poetry at High Desert Museum in Bend, OR | May 14, 2025

IlluminAsia Asia After Dark Poetry at National Museum of Asian Art | May 2025

“Art and Activism” Social Justice Day Speaker at Lowell School in DC | April 2025

Greenway Poetry Series at People’s Book Takoma | April 2025

Featured poet Reuben Jackson Jazz Poetry Set at American Poetry Museum | March 2024

Unassimilable book club discussion leader for Soapberry Review | March 2024

Featured poet at the Inn at Little Washington | February 14, 2025

“50 Years of HOPE and HA-HAs” | Vagabond @ DC Commission on the Arts and  Humanities | January 25, 2025.

“Art and Activism” MLK Assembly at the Maret School | January 2025

Lunar New Year poems for NUE at Smithsonian in DC | January 2025

“Imagining a Flourishing Future” | Art & Democracy Day at Hopkins Bloomberg Center | October 22, 2024.

“We Need To Talk: Repairing Our Social Fabric One Creative Conversation At a Time” | Davidson College | September 30, 2024.

Spring Poetry at Folger Theater in DC | August 3, 2024

Dialogue poetry at NUE restaurant in VA | July 31, 2024

“Cut Fruit” storytelling at the National Museum of Asian Art | June 22, 2024

“Art in Civic Education” | The Sphere Initiative at the Cato Institute | June 22, 2024.

“We Are the Greatest Poems” | Sparkfest24 at Amphibian Stage in Fort Worth, Texas | June 7, 2024

Featured AANHPI speaker at FIS Global, and poet in residence | May 20, 2024.

“Road To Recovery: A Poetic Response” | Brentwood Arts Exchange | May 19. 2024.