Born in Tasmania to a Vietnamese father and an Australian mother, Mai Nguyễn-Long grew up in Papua New Guinea and the Philippines; as an adult she lived in Australia, China, and Vietnam. This trajectory of experiences during times of social and political upheaval continue to shape Mai’s sense of belonging.An acute sense of absence and displacement informed her early academic commitments including Asian Studies, Art History, and Museum Studies. These interests led to her work with an international health organization, becoming a 1999 Australian Youth Ambassador for Development with the Ministry of Health in Fiji. Since 1996 Mai has exhibited across a range of mediums including painting, drawing, media, mixed media sculptures and installation. Her doctoral research was completed at University of Wollongong in 2022.
Dr Elly Kent is the editor of New Mandala, Deputy Director of the ANU Indonesia Institute and a member of the Asia: Innovation and Transformation Research Hub in the School of Art and Design at the Australian National University. Elly is the author of Artists and the People: Ideologies of Indonesian Art (2022) NUS Press, and co-editor (with Virginia Hooker and Caroline Turner) of Living Art: Indonesian Artists Engage Politics, Society and History (2022) ANU Press.