Matt Lucero and Tuan Andrew Nguyen, The Propeller Group

Artists and filmmakers Phunam, Matt Lucero, and Tuan Andrew Nguyen started the Propeller Group as a cross-disciplinary platform for creating art and media interventions that challenge and expand on how the public image is created inside the complex region of overlap between politics and advertising. Interested in how Vietnam as a nation became one of the most mediatized national identities in recent history, the Propeller Group began Viet Nam The World Tour in 2010 as a “rogue nation-rebranding campaign.” Turning strategies of nation branding upon themselves to question notions of nationalism, the project collaborates with youth culture and artistic pioneers networked to large international fan bases and communities to create a global movement and “ad campaign” that contradicts its own brand message. The Propeller Group has exhibited throughout North America, Europe, and Asia, including at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.