A Small Business Month Workshop for local artists led by Tran Vu Arts.

This workshop helps artists, makers, and creatives confidently identify as small business owners so they can more easily access small business and City resources, including technical assistance, capital readiness support, contracting and procurement opportunities, and other business services.

Learn more, vist City of Boston website: CLICK HERE

"Homes for Our Imagination: Designing Creative Futures Through Space & Belonging" is an interactive workshop that invites participants to reflect on what home, space, and belonging mean to them, while imagining the kinds of futures we want to build together. Through conversation, creative prompts, and collaborative exploration, we will consider how physical spaces hold memory, identity, care, and possibility. This workshop offers room to dream beyond what already exists and to envision spaces that nurture connection, cultural presence, and collective thriving.

About Artist Th!ve

Holding Stories in Our Hands is a 2.5-hour community sculpture workshop for all ages and abilities. We’ll use soft, easy-to-shape materials (like play-doh style dough) to make small 3D sculptures inspired by memory, place, and belonging. No art experience is needed. You can work sitting or standing, take breaks anytime, and share only what you feel comfortable sharing. At the end, participants can choose to bring their pieces together to create a shared sculpture moment as a group.

MCLA Residency

Making Artivism: A North Adams Convening for Creatives in Action brings together local artists, organizers, and culture workers to celebrate art, culture, and creativity and strengthen creative community power. Join us March 4, 5:30–7:30pm at MOSAIC’s EventSpace (49 Main St, North Adams) for guided prompts, small-group conversation, and networking. Parking is available nearby (public lots and street), and the venue is accessible by local transit!

At Build Peace 2025 in Barcelona, I facilitated Memory Mapping, a hands-on mixed-media workshop inviting participants from around the world to map personal and collective memory through stories of place, migration, belonging, and the landscapes we carry inside us. Together, we created “memory maps” that held family roots, turning points, and imagined futures, then shared reflections on how art can support cultural resilience and healing across movements. I’m grateful to everyone who showed up with tenderness, curiosity, and care, and to the Build Peace community for making space for creative practice as a form of peacebuilding.

On November 18th, CMCB youth employees (high school students) joined artist and cultural organizer Ngoc-Tran Vu for an interactive professional development workshop, Memory Mapping Through Art. Using magazines, glue sticks, scissors, cardstock, and markers, participants created mixed-media “memory maps” that reflected their personal histories, identities, and connections to place.

Through guided prompts and group reflection, youth explored how art can be a tool for storytelling, healing, and community building. The workshop offered students a chance to slow down, get creative, and share more about who they are, with many walking away feeling more grounded in their own stories and more connected to one another.

Ngoc-Tran Vu received the St. Botolph Club Foundation Emerging Artist Award, known as the Mary Shannon Award for Public Art, in recognition of her dynamic multimedia practice and deep commitment to socially engaged public art in the Boston area. Her work intertwines themes of migration, memory, ritual, and community healing, exemplified through her ongoing project 1975: A Vietnamese Diaspora Memorial. As a Dorchester-based artist and cultural organizer, Vu reflects the spirit of the Emerging Artist Award, which supports early-career New England artists whose creative work makes a meaningful impact in their communities.

As part of EdVestors’ Civic Engagement and Advocacy Day at City Hall, artist and cultural organizer Ngoc-Tran Vu led a powerful artmaking session with summer interns to explore the intersection of advocacy, identity, and civic life. Tran thoughtfully introduced the interns to core concepts of social justice organizing and facilitated a hands-on collage activity that encouraged students to reflect on their personal and collective experiences. This creative exercise served as a valuable frontloading activity for a letter the interns later wrote to City Council President Ruthzee Louijeune. For many participants, the artmaking process deepened their understanding of the day’s themes and helped them synthesize key learnings into a visual and written expression of civic voice.