Kho Tàng Nhạc Vàng

Kho Tàng Nhạc Vàng

June 5, 2025 - August 9, 2025

Reception: June 5, 2025

Between 1954 and 1975, South Vietnam stood at the crossroads of war and cultural renaissance, a nation shaped by conflict at the height of the Cold War. Amidst the turmoil, its songwriters emerged as the country’s most powerful storytellers—composing music that captured the hopes, heartbreaks, and resilience of a people navigating an uncertain future. Nhạc Vàng—or “Golden Music”—became the emotional heartbeat of a generation, reflecting themes of love, loss, and longing for peace.

Though South Vietnam lost the war, its music endures. Many of these songs were banned in Vietnam after 1975, but they survived through the diaspora, carried by refugees who refused to let their stories fade. This exhibition reclaims and recontextualizes this lost archive through an immersive exploration of rare song sheets, vinyl records, and digitized recordings from the artist's personal collection.

By introducing audiences to the songwriters who shaped South Vietnam’s cultural identity, Kho Tàng Nhạc Vàng bridges generations, inviting listeners to experience the lasting power of this music—songs that transcend borders, politics, and time. The exhibit is an immersive exploration of cultural memory, migration, and resistance—bridging the past and present through the enduring power of music.

What To Expect

This exhibition features digitized music recordings from 1954-1975, prints of rare album covers, sheet music, and digital film.

Themes include hope, heartbreak, love, loss, and longing for peace.

Artist Bio

Thanh Tân is a multimedia storyteller, independent filmmaker, and curator dedicated to preserving and sharing diasporic narratives through music, film, and journalism.

Based in Seattle, she is a co-founder of SEA Vinyl Society, a community-led initiative that unites generations through the preservation and performance of music and stories from Asia and the Asian diaspora. For more than two decades, Thanh has worked across journalism, documentary filmmaking, and audio storytelling, with her reporting and productions featured in The New York Times, This American Life, The Seattle Times, KUOW, and PBS/KCTS 9.

Her deep connection to music, particularly pre-1975 South Vietnamese records and song sheets, fuels her current curatorial work. Thanh’s collection—rare vinyl, vintage photographs, and handwritten compositions from Saigon’s golden era—offers a sonic and visual archive of a lost homeland. Through exhibitions, pop-up shows, and listening sessions, Thanh invites audiences to experience the artistry and resilience embedded in these artifacts, reviving voices once silenced by war and censorship.

Image: DemDong, by Nguyen Van Thuong