Fotomuseum Winterthur | Events | Wednesday, 16.09.2026, 18:00–19:00
Performative Acts: Fashion, Dark Humour and Photography
Nhu Xuan Hua, Partir Loin, Échouer, from the series Heaven and Hell, 2024 © Nhu Xuan Hua & Vimala Pons, Courtesy of the Galerie Anne-Laure Buffard
How can fashion photography become a space for exploring memory, identity and diasporic experiences?
Nhu Xuan Hua is an artist and fashion photographer who works with international fashion houses such as Dior, Maison Margiela, Kenzo and Gucci, as well as magazines including Vogue, TIME and Dazed Beauty. In her fashion commissions, she brings together personal memories and experiences of displacement, creating visual worlds that engage with questions of identity and belonging.
During this dialogue-based tour of One Another – Nhu Xuan Hua and the Collection of Fotomuseum Winterthur, the exhibition’s curator Alessandra Nappo and Helen Pombo, an editor and creative director working across art, design and fashion, discuss the narrative possibilities of contemporary fashion photography.
Through selected works, they explore how Nhu Xuan Hua uses staging and digital image editing to create dreamlike and at times surreal visual worlds. What role does digital editing play in her visual language? How can personal stories and themes such as inclusion and diversity be conveyed through a fashion commission? And how does the artist use fashion and black humour to question familiar narratives, develop counter-narratives and open up new perspectives?
The tour brings together a curatorial perspective with insights into fashion and visual culture. Visitors are invited to contribute their own observations, questions and interpretations.
The dialogue-based tour will be held in German.
Nhu Xuan Hua is an artist and fashion photographer who works with international fashion houses such as Dior, Maison Margiela, Kenzo and Gucci, as well as magazines including Vogue, TIME and Dazed Beauty. In her fashion commissions, she brings together personal memories and experiences of displacement, creating visual worlds that engage with questions of identity and belonging.
During this dialogue-based tour of One Another – Nhu Xuan Hua and the Collection of Fotomuseum Winterthur, the exhibition’s curator Alessandra Nappo and Helen Pombo, an editor and creative director working across art, design and fashion, discuss the narrative possibilities of contemporary fashion photography.
Through selected works, they explore how Nhu Xuan Hua uses staging and digital image editing to create dreamlike and at times surreal visual worlds. What role does digital editing play in her visual language? How can personal stories and themes such as inclusion and diversity be conveyed through a fashion commission? And how does the artist use fashion and black humour to question familiar narratives, develop counter-narratives and open up new perspectives?
The tour brings together a curatorial perspective with insights into fashion and visual culture. Visitors are invited to contribute their own observations, questions and interpretations.
The dialogue-based tour will be held in German.