We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Cléo Sương Mai Richez a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Cléo Sương Mai thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

I think one of the most meaningful projects I’ve worked on is naming myself. I did it as a gesture of performance on my own life. The name came from a memory, I wrote a text about it called walk on by. Before that text, my full name was Cléo Annie Rosalie Richez. After that text, my full name is Cléo Sương Mai Annie Rosalie Richez. It is a name I can barely pronounce, I might never be able to say it properly. It doesn’t matter. 

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I grew up in France, moved to London when I was 18 and a few years later, to New York. I spent most of my life watching movies and their behind the scenes.
In my practice, I’m interesting in unpacking and building systems and it usually takes the form of telling stories. Those stories take whatever form they need to have: a video, an installation, a gesture of performance, a text, a drawing… or all of that at once.

Right now, I’m in my last year of an MFA in Photography at the Pratt Institute. I have evolved so much through it, I’m proud of the work I am making there, of the community I’m surrounded by and, of the conversations we have.

3 of my friends and I started a project called zeroview. So far it’s been about curating shows with more than 60 artists, having community dinners and being in conversation. I’m looking forward to see how this itinerant project evolves…

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

The short film “The Feeling of Being Close to You” by Ash Goh Hua has been very inspiring for my video work.
This summer I read Panivong Norindr’s collection of essays “Phantasmatic Indochina”. It unpacked the fictive and mythic aspects created by French colonialism within the concept of Indochina. Even though the book is from the nineties, I felt like it was the first time I had read such a precise unpacking of colonial mediations of a place my family is from. It spoke to me of the “Vietnam of the Mind” that An-My Lê (probably my favorite photographer) talks about.
How is a place that is supposedly your heritage being told to you when you don’t have a direct access to it? What are the power dynamics within it? Where do you go from there?

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

I think a lot of that feels like a privilege. How special it feels to be able to make things and talk about it with people. Being able to have a community of friends and generally people to nerd out with.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: richezcleo
• Other: substack: cleosuongmai
  vimeo: richezcleo

Image Credits

– Personal Pictures

– studio picture by Aileen Schretzmayer