Taking its title from a recent conversation with Vietnamese artist Trần Lương, The Paper Is a Person explores a deceptively simple idea: that painting is a form of dialogue. Beginning with an intimate understanding of paper as interlocutor, rather than passive support, Cieśla traces how this dialogic approach expands across Trần Lương’s three-decade practice, from delicate paintings on Xuan and Dó paper to socially engaged performances shaped by community, participation and encounter.

Set against the shifting cultural, political and economic landscape of postwar Vietnam, the talk considers how conditions of censorship, displacement and limited artistic infrastructure shaped a practice grounded not in control, but in responsiveness. Focusing on the exhibition Tâm Tâm: Soaked in the Long Rain at the Art Gallery of Western Australia, this talk proposes that what persists across Trần Lương’s practice is a commitment to relation, attentiveness and the risks of working without mastery.