Artist Vivian Tran Spins Through Generations in Greenway Show

Artist Vivian Tran believes our bodies carry knowledge about our ancestors.

For her, this is particularly critical, given her own family’s history. Her grandparents were from China and moved to Vietnam. Her parents were born in Vietnam and moved to Canada. And Tran was born in Canada and is now living in Boston.

“Our bodies are like the thread that connects us,” said Tran, while sitting nearby the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, recently.

This concept of our body's holding ancestral knowledge is deeply linked to her upcoming art installation at Auntie Kay & Uncle Frank Chin Park on The Greenway. Her work, slated to run from April 23 to December 2026, celebrates and reflects on her grandfather, who sold ice on a trike, or large tricycle, in Vietnam years ago, before refrigerators were common and when the heat and humidity of summer days were impossible to escape. Titled, “Because You Are the Sun; Because You Are the Thread,” the public art installation includes two stationary vending tricycles with a large box on the back of each that holds giant “flipbooks” that play images when passersby pedal the bikes.

“I feel like street vending is something that is always overlooked,” she said. “I thought it would be cool to uplift this part of someone’s life.”

Vivian Tran posed for a photo outside the Museum of Fine Arts recently. Photo by Adam Smith

Essentially, those who pedal the tricycles become part of the work itself, she said.

“It lets people tap into what people (like my grandfather) were doing,” said Tran. “It’s like the rider is starring in that flipbook.”

Tran collaborated with sculptor and builder Mitchell Dose, Jaywalk Studio, Black Cat Labs and Best Dressed Sign to create the installation, which is made of metal, plywood, and other materials. The flipbook animates sequences of images that Tran collected from video stills from old Vietnamese TV shows.

“This was my first public art installation, so it was really overwhelming.”

When she spoke to a Sampan reporter, the work was still a week away from being set up, and she showed some uncertainty about how it would all turn out. “It has a lot of moving parts,” she said.

But, Tran said, art – which she fell in love with toward the end of high school – has taught her to embrace the uncertainties of life.

“I’m not really into finding answers. I’m OK with uncertainties.”

Navigating familial relationships as a teen, Tran said she found art could act almost as a language, as a way of communicating ideas.

In fact, as she spoke, she recalled that recently she was rereading her diary from high school, and was struck by a passage she penned years ago. “Whatever I do in life, I want to keep discovering ways of loving the world.”

“If I had to revise that now,” she said, “I would add, ‘I want to give form to that love.’”

Art, said Tran, is one way to give form to that love.

But Tran said she does not only focus on art to create art. She finds inspiration from life, her family, and other areas. In fact, in addition to earning a Bachelor in Fine Arts with a focus on studio art, she also holds a Bachelor of Science in cognitive and brain science from Tufts University.

“Studying other things has made me more sensitive to things than I otherwise would be,” she said. “I really do believe that that life and art are not separate.”

An artist talk with Tran will be held April 23 at noon on Zoom, and a communal Vietnamese-style ice dessert will be held May 30. For more information, see www.rosekennedygreenway.org/events/artist-talk-vivian-tran