CALL FOR CREATIVE WORKS
Inspired by
The Tale of Kiều

Tracing Kiều is an independent art and literary initiative inviting creative responses to The Tale of Kiều, (Truyện Kiều), Vietnam’s most celebrated literary text. Rooted in the Vietnamese diaspora and developed in dialogue with writers and artists across the diaspora and with Vietnam, the project seeks to explore how Kiều continues to resonate across different histories, geographies, and lived experiences today.

Your contribution will help shape the project’s evolving curatorial framework and the development of a planned anthology, exhibition, and public program.

Last updated: [November 16, 2025]

Quick Info

Express interest: mail@tracinkieu.net
Deadline: January–February 2026 (flexible, just write us! Early contributions help project development)
Language: We welcome submissions in any language; we aim to include bilingual versions where possible; the project’s base language is English
Download: Jump to the call PDFs below
More context: See Vision, Team, FAQ, Blog, and Resources

Who This Call Is For

Tracing Kiều welcomes submissions from writers, artists, researchers, and cultural practitioners from the Vietnamese diaspora and within Vietnam, whose experiences, perspectives, or creative concerns intersect meaningfully with the poem and its themes.

You do not need prior familiarity with Kiều to participate. Many in the diaspora encounter the poem only later in life, and this range of connection – from intimate knowledge to first discovery – is part of what the project seeks to reflect.

Why Kiều, Why Now?

The Tale of Kiều has shaped Vietnamese cultural imagination for more than two centuries, yet within the diaspora our relationship to it varies: some grew up with its verses, others know it only in fragments, or discover it anew as adults. This distance, alongside the poem’s deep cultural presence, makes Kiều a compelling starting point for contemporary creative exploration.

The name “Kiều” itself carries a double resonance: it invokes both Thúy Kiều, the poem’s central figure, and Việt kiều, the many forms of life shaped by migration and displacement. The idea of “tracing” speaks to this layered meaning – following a story across time and geography, piecing together what has been inherited, forgotten, reinterpreted, or reimagined.

Rather than retell Kiều’s story or illustrate its scenes, this project invites works that interpret, translate, or respond to the poem’s emotional and ethical landscapes. The core concerns of Kiều – love, loss, injustice, resilience, and moral complexity – resonate far beyond their original context, touching on broader questions of migration and belonging. Engaging with the poem opens a space to explore these concerns from many angles, weaving personal and cultural histories into contemporary creative practice.

Approaching Kiều’s Journey

These thematic dialogues trace Kiều’s story while opening onto broader questions of diaspora and human experience. They offer starting points to respond to the poem, to reimagine it, or to critically engage with it across generations, languages, and creative forms.

Departure & Exile

How does leaving – or losing – home shape beginnings, borders, and belonging?

Love, Yearning, Betrayal & Power

How do intimacy and desire create bonds? What happens when trust breaks or power shifts?

Sacrifice & Survival

What do we give up in order to endure, and how do we make meaning from those choices?

Identity & Transformation

How are identities reshaped across languages, cultures, genders, and generations?

Return & Distance

What happens when we go back? How do memory, reconnection, and unmet expectations shape the encounter?

Language & Transmission

How does a text travel – recited, rewritten, translated, and what keeps the Tale of Kiều alive for new audiences?

Opening the Text:
Bói Kiều as Creative Prompt

The Vietnamese folk practice bói Kiều – divining with Kiều – involves opening the book at random and reading a verse as guidance.

In Tracing Kiều, we invite you to adapt this gesture as a creative method: begin with a couplet, image, or theme, and let that chance encounter spark a new work or illuminate one already in progress.

Reinterpreting bói Kiều in this way turns reading into a form of collaboration – bridging the distance between past and present, and opening space for new conversations with the poem.

Ideas to Get Started

Possible ways of translating your response into form

Create your own bói Kiều moment:
Choose a random couplet and carry its story into the present.
Reimagine a scene:
Carry a moment or theme from the poem into a personal or contemporary context.
Link to the diaspora:
Connect a passage to experiences of migration, language, mixed heritage, love, care, loss, or return.
Voice alternative perspectives:
Speak from a character’s point of view or from those left unheard.
Translate across mediums:
Let a verse or theme shift into visual art, installation, performance, moving image, or sound – focusing on interpretation rather than depiction.
Reimagine Kiều’s journey spatially:
Conceive a structure, environment, or visual narrative that traces the poem’s emotional or physical terrain, without depicting specific scenes.

Formats We Welcome

For the anthology

Tracing Kiều is developing a multi-genre anthology that brings together writing, visual work, and selected documentation of time-based or expanded practices. Alongside completed pieces, we welcome concepts for new artworks and performances, as well as documentation of existing works that engage with Kiều’s themes. Print-ready texts and images may be included directly in the anthology.

We welcome contributions from both established and lesser-known creatives, reflecting the project’s commitment to a broad range of artistic voices and perspectives.

For the exhibition

Time-based, performative, and research-driven contributions – including readings or discussions of submitted texts – will be considered for the exhibition and discursive program as these components develop and as funding allows.

Across all formats, we welcome works that engage with Kiều through interpretation rather than depiction – exploring connection, rupture, care, identity, memory, loss, language, and return.

While the anthology and exhibition prioritize interpretive and conceptual responses, the discursive program may may also feature traditional forms such as ngâm thơ (recited poetry), reflecting how Kiều has been performed and passed on across generations.

All submissions are reviewed through a curatorial selection process, carried out in close coordination with our advisory partners.

Formats you might consider include:

Writing: Short fiction, poetry, personal essays, creative dialogues, and interview-based narratives – especially works that interpret or reimagine Kiều’s themes.
Visual / Graphic: Painting, drawing, comics, collage, photography, image–text hybrids, storyboards – with an emphasis on conceptual or thematic translation.
Time / space-based: Installations, objects, video, sound, performance. Send concepts or documentation of works exploring Kiều’s themes.

How to Submit

Ready to take part? Steps at a glance:

Fall 2025: Email us to introduce yourself and your idea: mail@tracingkieu.net
Final submission window: January – February 2026. If you need an extension, just write us! Early submissions help us with our funding efforts.
Send one file (≤10 MB) with: name / pronouns / location; ~100-word bio; project title + 100–200-word note on how it engages The Tale of Kiều; your completed work.
– For visual, spatial, or time-based works (performance, installation, video, sound), please send documentation and/or a short description or concept.
Languages: English (working), Vietnamese, German, French, or other diaspora languages; we aim to include bilingual versions where possible.
Details & updates: See Submissions →

Download Short Call

Short Call (1 page EN PDF)

Download Long Call

Browse the long call in the window below.
Scroll down to download PDFs in EN/DE/VN/FR.

Long Call (EN PDF) Aufruf (DE PDF) Lời kêu gọi (VN PDF) Appel (FR PDF)

Note: The PDF presentation is a snapshot of the call. For the most current details, please refer to this website – see also our Vision, FAQ, Blog, Submissions, and Resources pages.

Express your interest this Fall 2025 – joining early helps build momentum for funding and planning.

CALL FOR CREATIVE WORKSInspired by The Tale of Kiều