Key Points
- Autograph in Shoreditch is presenting the first UK solo exhibition of French Vietnamese artist Nhu Xuan Hua.
- The exhibition is titled “Nhu Xuan Hua: Of Walking on Fire” and spans both gallery spaces at Autograph’s Rivington Place building.
- It opened in spring 2026 and is listed as running from 16 April to 19 September 2026.
- The show features newly commissioned work presented for the first time.
- Hua’s practice sits at the intersection of art and fashion photography.
- Her work explores fragility of memory, family history, and the way stories are communicated or withheld across generations.
- She reworks archival family photographs from Vietnam and early years in Europe into digitally altered, dreamlike compositions.
- The exhibition is free to attend, according to the listing for the venue.
Shoreditch (Extra London News) April 17, 2026 — Autograph is presenting Nhu Xuan Hua: Of Walking on Fire, a solo exhibition that marks the first UK show of the French Vietnamese artist, with the gallery saying the project brings newly commissioned work to both of its main spaces in Shoreditch.
According to Autograph, Hua works at the meeting point of art and fashion photography, and her images explore how memory can be fragile, blurred, and difficult to pass on intact. The gallery says she revisits archival photographs from her family’s time in Vietnam and their early years in Europe, then transforms them into dreamlike digital compositions that shift between recognition and distortion.
The exhibition title itself, Of Walking on Fire, signals intensity, but the gallery description focuses less on spectacle and more on the uncertainty of memory and inherited narrative. That theme places the show within a broader interest in diaspora, family history, and the visual language of reconstruction.
Why does the exhibition matter?
As reported by Autograph, the exhibition is significant because it is the artist’s first solo presentation in the UK and because it brings newly commissioned work into a major London photography and visual culture venue. The New Exhibitions listing confirms the show is being staged at Autograph in London and that it will run across two gallery spaces.
The subject matter also gives the exhibition wider relevance. Hua’s focus on memory and intergenerational storytelling connects personal history with questions many audiences recognise: what gets preserved, what gets softened, and what disappears when family stories move across countries and generations.
For London’s art calendar, the show adds another contemporary perspective to a city that regularly hosts exhibitions centred on identity, photography, and diasporic experience. The fact that entry is free may also broaden access for visitors who might not normally pay for a commercial gallery experience.
What do the sources say about the venue and dates?
The exhibition is listed at Autograph, Rivington Place, London, EC2A 3BA, in Shoreditch. New Exhibitions gives the run dates as 16 April to 19 September 2026, with a private view on 15 April 2026 from 6-8pm.
Time Out also identifies the same venue and describes the show as taking over both of Autograph Gallery’s main spaces. That aligns with Autograph’s own description that the exhibition spans both gallery spaces at its Shoreditch building.
How is the exhibition described by the gallery?
Autograph says the work reflects on the “fragility of memory” and the ways stories are “communicated – or withheld – across generations”. It also says Hua builds elaborate visual reconstructions that echo how memory in the diaspora can “splinter, blur and slip from view”.
This description suggests a body of work that is visually rich but conceptually restrained, with emphasis on atmosphere, recomposition, and psychological texture rather than straightforward documentary storytelling. The gallery framing also places the exhibition in a conversation about how photographs can both preserve and alter memory.
Background of this development
Autograph is a London venue known for exhibitions connected to photography, identity, and underrepresented visual histories. The decision to mount the first UK solo exhibition by Nhu Xuan Hua indicates growing institutional attention to artists working across photography, fashion imagery, and archival reinterpretation.
The wider context also includes continued visibility for Vietnamese and Vietnamese diaspora art in London. In late 2025, Vietnamese contemporary work appeared at London Asian Art Week and at Sotheby’s, showing that interest in Vietnamese art has been present across different parts of the capital’s art scene.
Prediction
For London-based art audiences, the exhibition is likely to attract visitors interested in photography, diaspora narratives, and contemporary visual storytelling. Because the show is free and situated in Shoreditch, it may also draw casual visitors and students who are already active in the area’s cultural circuit.
For the broader audience interested in Vietnamese or French Vietnamese contemporary art, the exhibition may help increase Hua’s visibility in the UK and support further critical attention to work that reinterprets family archives and memory. It may also encourage more galleries and curators to programme exhibitions that approach identity through photographic reconstruction rather than conventional portraiture.
