Richard STREITMATTER-TRAN (b. 1972, Bien Hoa, Vietnam) is an artist living and working in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. He received his BFA in the Studio for Interrelated Media (SIM) at the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston.
His solo and collaborative work has been exhibited internatonally including the Setouchi Triennale (2019), Thailand Biennale (2018), 4th Guangzhou Triennale (2011), the Singapore Biennale (2008 & 2006), Art Stage Singapore, the Nanjing Art Festival (2015) and the Palais de Tokyo (2015, )Ke Center for Contemporary Art in Shanghai (2008), Singapore Art Museum (SAM), Eslite Gallery (Taiwan), 52nd Venice Biennale (2007), Shenzhen and Hong Kong Bi-city Biennale (2007), The 2nd Asia Triennial in Manchester, Thermocline of Art: New Asian Waves at ZKM in Karlsruhe, Germany, Asia Art Now at Arario Beijing, 1st Pocheon Asian Art Festival, Gwangju Biennale (2004), Kandada Art Space (Tokyo), 10 Chancery Lane Gallery (Hong Kong), Art Space Hue (Korea), The Vietnam Women’s Museum, the Hugh Lane Gallery (Dublin), Chula Art Center (Bangkok), Singapore Art Museum/Centre Pompidou video exhibition (2011).
He was an arts correspondent for the Madrid-based magazine Art.Es and and Ho Chi Minh City editor for Contemporary and has published in several books, catalogs and journals. In 2005 he received the Martell Contemporary Asian Art Research Grant from the Asia Art Archive in Hong Kong for his year-long research project, Mediating the Mekong. He was a Teaching Assistant at Harvard University (2000-2004), conducted media arts research at the MIT Media Lab (2000) and a visiting lecturer at the Ho Chi Minh Fine Arts University in 2003-4. He was an advisor to the Para/Site Curatorial Programme in Hong Kong and mentor for the San Art Artist Residency program in Ho Chi Minh City. From 2006-2015 he was Senior Lecturer at RMIT International University Vietnam. He is currently pursuing at Masters in Applied Arts at Ton Duc University and is Lecturer in the Faculty of Design and Art at Hoa Sen University in HCMC..
Upon relocating to Vietnam in 2003, he formed ProjectOne, a Ho Chi Minh City-based performance art group now defunct. Two years later he became a founding member of Mogas Station, a group of international creators (artists and architects) based in Ho Chi Minh City.
For the Singapore Biennale 2008, he collaborated with Burmese artist Chaw Ei Thein to create September Sweetness, an life-sized pagoda constructed entirely from 6 tons of sugar that slowly eroded throughout the life of the exhibition.
In 2010, he established DIA PROJECTS, a contemporary art experiment and studio space in Ho Chi Minh City. Working with collaborator Le Tuong Vi under the persona, VILE/RATS, they form projects emerging from artistic research and speculative investigations into the fault lines of science, philosophy and art. Other projects have included collaborations with CIANT (Prague), The Asia Art Archive (Hong Kong), The Japan Foundation and The Japan Society. Since its inception, Dia Projects has hosted four in-residence researchers from Bangkok ,Manila, Montreal and Seoul. In 2015 with Tran Thanh Ha, Dia Projects launched a new exhibition space in Ho Chi Minh City.
As co-curator he conceived The Mekong exhibition with Russell Storer of the Queensland Art Gallery for the 6th Asia Pacific Triennale (APT6) in 2009.
While his practice began in performance art and new media, his current focus involves the investigation of materials largely through sculpture, painting, installation and drawing.
He is represented by de Sarthe Gallery in Hong Kong.and Vin Gallery in Ho Chi Minh City.