tên tôi: On-Site with Nguyễn Ngọc Thảo

tên tôi: On-Site with Nguyễn Ngọc Thảo

  • 15 Jul 2025 - 10 Aug 2025
  • Various Times
  • FREE
  • First Site Gallery
Storey Hall Basement, 344 Swanston Street, Melbourne
event header image

Names can connect us and embody our stories. tên tôi is a community-driven project that embraces and celebrates ethnic names through bead-making workshops and participatory installations.

Nguyễn Ngọc Thảo is an artist, curator and educator who lives and works in Naarm/Melbourne. Her current art and research practice focusses on the weaponisation of language against Asian Australians, and how creative practice can notice, understand and ultimately resist against the impacts of Whiteness. tên tôi embraces and celebrates ethnic names through community-based workshops and a participatory art installation. 

First Site visitors are invited to engage in an exchange; to 'take' and/or 'leave' a name, contributing to a collective narrative of identity and belonging. Visitors can craft bracelets with names of their choosing, using unique ceramic and clay beads handmade by individuals from across Canada, America, Japan, and Australia. They can then choose to leave this name bracelet for another person to take, and/or take an existing name bracelet.

Opening Hours

11am - 5pm Tuesday to Friday

Closed on public and University holidays

Share

Upcoming events

concentric-circles-reference-1220x732.jpg

The Concentric Influences of Sol LeWitt: Foundations, Pivots and Place

Icon / Small / CalendarCreated with Sketch. 05 Jun 2026 - 29 Aug 2026

'The Concentric Influences of Sol LeWitt: Foundations, Pivots and Place' positions Australia at the centre of an ambitious global dialogue on conceptual art, influence and the circulation of ideas. Instigated and directed by Dr Irene Barberis, the project demonstrates how Australian scholarship and curatorial innovation can actively shape international discourse surrounding one of the most influential artists of the twentieth century.

venturous-ref-3-1220x732.jpg

VENTUROUS: Design Practice Research Futures in Architecture & Urban Design

Icon / Small / CalendarCreated with Sketch. 31 Jul 2026 - 19 Sep 2026

VENTUROUS brings together the projects and design explorations of innovative contemporary architects and designers associated with the RMIT University School of Architecture & Urban Design’s groundbreaking design practice PhD program, over the last decade.

how-to-draw-a-not-straight-line-1220x732.jpg

How to Draw a Not-Straight Line

Icon / Small / CalendarCreated with Sketch. 20 Aug 2026

Join Erica DiBenedetto, Curator, Chazen Museum of Art, University of Wisconcin—Madison, USA, in a conversation around Sol LeWitt's concept of the 'not-straight-line'.

aboriginal flag float-starttorres strait flag float-start

Acknowledgement of Country

RMIT University acknowledges the people of the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung language groups of the eastern Kulin Nation on whose unceded lands we conduct the business of the University. RMIT University respectfully acknowledges their Ancestors and Elders, past and present. RMIT also acknowledges the Traditional Custodians and their Ancestors of the lands and waters across Australia where we conduct our business - Artwork 'Sentient' by Hollie Johnson, Gunaikurnai and Monero Ngarigo.

Learn more about our commitment to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples