Four years ago, as she passed through the Van Wickle Gates, Quyen Truong '05 never foresaw graduating as a visual arts concentrator. But now, she's ending her Brown career having completed two art shows in recent weeks.
The change in her career plans would not have happened without Brown, Truong said. When asked about how Brown has affected her, she said, "I think it chilled me out in some ways. ... Brown has helped me learn how to enjoy life a little more."
In high school, Truong was the typical overworked and overstressed student who saw herself using college as a springboard to a profession.
"In high school I was very competitive and stressed out about a lot of school work," she said. "At Brown, nobody's impressed with this."
Instead, at Brown, Truong followed her passion for the arts, aided by the University's open curriculum.
She said she now feels "empowered to become more of myself rather than fitting myself into a mold."
The RiverzEdge project is the first testament to Truong's idea of what art can accomplish. The program that Truong created pays at-risk youth in Woonsocket for the artwork they create at the program. As the recipient of a C.V. Starr National Service Fellowship, Truong funded and organized RiverEdge through the Swearer Center.
The logic behind the non-traditional outreach program is clear, Truong said - "paying kids for their art ... kids learning that their creative skills are valued."
As part of her research for RiverzEdge, Truong has studied community youth art programs across the nation to investigate whether a program that pays children for their artwork can be a success.
"A lot of these kids have personal problems at home. It's just a hard area to grow up in. ... They are basically really good kids," Truong said of the young artists involved with RiverzEdge.
Truong's involvement with the greater Providence community evolved during her four years at Brown, participating in four breaks projects through the Swearer Center. Breaks projects help connect Brown to its surrounding neighborhoods and allow students to evolve and learn outside of the confines of the East Side of Providence. This year, instead of visiting sandy beaches with pristine waves during spring break, Truong led a project in Providence on sustainable agriculture.
Truong's art, the connecting thread of everything in her life, has also allowed her to pursue her interest in her Vietnamese heritage.
Truong and her family moved from her birthplace of Saigon to Hartford, Conn., when she was five years old. Like many South Vietnamese soldiers, Truong's father had been imprisoned before that, spending seven years in a reeducation camp.
Truong has taken advantage of Brown's resources to investigate Vietnamese culture and history in classes like Professor of English Elizabeth Taylor's EL 119: "Writing the Southeast Asian War" and the class taught by Professor of International Studies James Blight that came to be known as "The Vietnam War and the War on Terrorism."
She also participated in an exhibition this April commemorating the 30th anniversary of the fall of Saigon and other milestones of the Vietnam War. Truong exhibited her paintings and explained the influence on her work of her and her father's first trip back to Vietnam, in 2004, and her father's experiences.
Truong has also been involved with her roots through student-run organizations. She served as the Asian American student liaison and co-chair of the Vietnamese Students Association, and she has coordinated Southeast Asian Cultural Week through the Third World Center.
The Brown Outdoor Leadership Training Program transitioned Truong into her second year at Brown and introduced her to many of her current friends. Artistically, Truong's first entire immersion into nature incredibly influenced the color, composition, and subject of her work. Because of such a positive first experience with BOLT, Truong went on to become a leader and stayed involved in the program while here at Brown.
A watershed in Truong's plans for the future occurred on a trip to Costa Rica she took on a whim with a friend - "being an itinerant for a while ... is a lifestyle I might try out," she said.
Now at the end of her Brown experience, Truong isn't sure of what future will hold but knows that the New York starving artist scene is not for her.
Truong was the only undergraduate Mellon intern at the RISD Museum in the summer of 2004, where she learned curatorial skills and about the world of museums.
But she said she sees herself doing art in a more public way in the future. She wants to use her creative talents to further her passion for public service.
"I think at this point I am going to continue to create art to benefit a community whether with youth and art, policy level maybe," Truong said.
