Artist Talk with Dr. Han Ren & Vy Ngo
Thursday, October 23, 2025
6-8 pm
Join artist Vy Ngo and guest speaker Dr. Han Ren for an intimate conversation exploring themes of intergenerational trauma, cultural identity, and healing. Through her exhibition What Lingers in Our Bones, Ngo reflects on memory, resilience, and self-discovery, while Dr. Ren, a licensed psychologist and educator, brings a justice-oriented and culturally informed perspective on collective healing. Together, they will offer insight into the intersections of art, lived experience, and mental health, inviting the audience to reflect on the power of vulnerability and connection.
Vy Ngo is a Vietnamese American visual artist, physician, and activist based in Austin, Texas. Raised in Pennsylvania by refugee parents who fled the Vietnam War, she navigated cultural expectations and a deep-rooted desire to serve others, ultimately building a career in pediatric medicine. In 2015, she returned to art with urgency, exploring visual languages from painting to site-specific installations as a way to examine identity, memory, and vulnerability. Ngo has exhibited solo and collaboratively in galleries, art fairs, and public spaces across Texas and nationally, from California to Tennessee. Her work is held in private and public collections including Austin City Hall and the Texas A&M Multicultural Center, and has been featured in Glasstire, Tribeza, Austin Woman, and PBS. As a member of the ICOSA artist collective, she remains deeply active in the Austin arts community, using programming and curation to uplift inclusive voices and expand the conversation around contemporary art.
Dr. Han Ren (she/they) is a licensed clinical and school psychologist, consultant, speaker, and educator. She is deeply rooted in liberation and anti-oppressive work, practicing from a justice-oriented, interpersonal, culturally-humble, and systems-informed framework. Through their widely viewed content on social media, they strive to make mental health accessible and applicable to our daily lives. Dr. Ren addresses the pursuit of collective healing through her work centered in historically overlooked communities, especially Asian-Americans and children of immigrants. She co-leads a group private practice in Austin, Texas and has been featured on the TEDx stage, the Headspace app, the Huffington Post, and NPR’s Life Kit. When she's not in the therapy chair, Dr. Ren is working on her first book: "The Hyphenated Life,", a self-help memoir on bridging the in-between spaces of intersectional identities, debuting in 2026.
This event is free and open to the public; registration is encouraged but not required.
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