Carô Gervay explores photography as a performative and relational process that produces new spaces of memory, connection and potential for critical action. She photographs, exhibits, facilitates, creating links between the UK, France and Vietnam.

 

COLLECTIVES & DEVELOPMENT

2017-ongoing co-director at the Gate (community) Darkroom, London, UK,  pursuing collective organising and connecting with the history of UK community darkrooms. I help curate programs, exhibitions, crits, workshops, publications and run courses.

2021-ongoing I initiated Reframes, a group of London-based Vietnamese women, with linguist Hoa Le and psychotherapist Dr Lili Ly, we gather, study and create through words, photographs and food

Sep-Dec 2023 currently studying Introductory Certificate in Counselling Skills for Antiracist Therapeutic Practice (Black African and Asian Therapy Network)

2022-2023 Took part in Trace Mentorship, year long program for women photographers over 35yo (mentoring sessions, portfolio reviews, workshops and talks with women photographers from the industry, such as Tate, Autograph, V&A)

2018-2022 Associate artist at Asia-Art-Activism Research Network (AAA), 2 year residency at Raven Row Gallery

2018-2020 Part of the collective FemmesPHOTOgraphes, France

2013-2020 Photovoice training, and worked as facilitator at Fotosynthesis (participatory photography in schools, communities, cultural institutions)

2007-2010 BA (Hons) in Photographic Arts, Westminster University, London+Erasmus exchange in Barcelona 

 

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS & PROJECTS

Summer 23 Participated in Archives Lab: activating the An Việt Archives through knowledge and experiences of British-Vietnamese communities,, Hackney Archives, CLR James Library, London

Apr-Jul 23 No Place Like Home, Museum of the Home, London. Curation Hoa Dung Clerget and KV Duong: 'More than a group exhibition, No Place Like Home gathers the public, provokes discussion, becomes a platform for community convergence. We built a space that challenges the standard museum display and invite the audience to sit on the floor on straw rugs during workshops or simply to chat'

May-Jun 23 Revived, Vincom Center for Contemporary Art, Hà Nội, Curation Đỗ Tường Linh, Mai Nguyên Anh

‘Revived invited artists using photographs as a point of departure to explore various ways of understanding oneself, understanding the world, exploring unconscious modes of thinking, and imagining an image’

Apr 23 Everyone is an Archivist, photography (disposable cameras) workshop for Vietnamese and ESEA communities, facilitated by Carô Gervay and Dora Lam, as part of ‘Uncovering Vietnamese Archives’, Museum of the Home, London

Jan 23 Tout le Monde est Ensemble, Même Moi: A ‘living exhibition’ at the crossroads of theater and photography. By mixing theatrical performance and film photography, the 9th grade students of the Jean Vilar college tell their stories through elements of their history and neighborhood. This creation is the result of workshops facilitated by Carô Gervay and Cléa Petrolesi as part of a Culture and Art project in secondary schools (Seine-Saint-Denis)

Sept-Oct 2022 [this-place-meant] Gate Darkoom exhibition, Thames-Side Studios gallery, curation Sarah Ainslie

Autumn 2021 Care for Curatorial Collective, Peer-led workshop with a focus on Emergence for Collectivity led by Bettina Fung, Carô Gervay, Ghost and John, Joon-Lynn Goh, Youngsook Choi, actively destabilising and decentralising the individualised narratives around the South East and East Asian (SEEA) Diaspora inside and outside of Asia through their practice

-Commissioned by ESEA Hub (holding space & recording our history of lived experiences, bearing witness to the ESEA racism so that nothing can be forgotten, denied or obscured) to create a photographic dialog on entering the public space as an Asian woman

Jul 2021 Deliver and exhibits Reframes with Hoa Le and Lili Ly for Encounter Bow festival (ACE), Chisenhale Dance Space, curator Moi Tran. Collaboration with Vietnamese diasporic women linking photography, psychology, linguistics

Nov 2020 text-photo-collage on loneliness and communicating with ancestors through photographs, AAA online festival Till We Meet Again

Nov 2019 Light Conversations, 12 week photo project, Light Stories, Vietnamese Mental Health Services (Lottery Fund), participant-led exhibition celebrating the 30 years of the charity, London
Oct 2019 Thingness, with the Gate Darkroom, Deptford X festival, Deptford Lounge, London

Jun-Jul 2019-Claylands, duo exhibition with artist Martin Brockman, BlackShed Gallery, Robertsbridge, UK

Apr 2019 Resettled Spaces, Examining the Home, multimedia group show. Lien Viet Housing Association, London

Mar 2019 Radio commission with AAA: How does the printed photographic image sit in our heart today? How do human voices reactivate it? When does it connect us to each other and when does it divide us?

Sep 2018 Appearing Act -Viết đi, Viết lại- (Write, Rewrite), solo work-in-progress exhibition, Thames-Side-Studios Lounge, London, UK

2018-2019 R&D in Paris with youth organisation Phakama, part of London, Paris, Athens Refugee Network research project, Queen Mary University, London, UK

Nov 2017 No Maps for What We Know, Gate Darkroom exhibition, Urban Photo Fest, Goldsmiths University, London

Oct 2017 Appearing Act and Chúng Ta, the Albany, part of the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival, London, UK

Oct 2017 Appearing Act for Vietnam Now, a festival of arts and films, Foyer Vietnam, Paris, France

Mar 2017 Duo exhibition with artist Fosca Democrito, Reunion,"Lights in the Storm”, CRAC Lamezia Terme, Italy

Nov 2016 Collective Traces, Gate Darkroom 1st group exhibition, Urban Photo Festival, Goldsmiths, London

Sep 2016 Feeding the Millions, on London night markets, with painter Xanthe Mosley and poet Rachel Long, Rich Mix, London

2015 Mix media Group exhibition, 42 curated by Harry Pye

2014 Mix media Group exhibition, Elefest. Jolie Laide, curated by Harry Pye, Hotel Elephant, London, UK

2012 Mix media Group exhibition, I Remember, curated by Harry Pye, A-side B-side Gallery, Hackney, London

2011 Exploding cinema at the Others, Stoke Newington, London Epiphanique-Ondée

2010 SW1 Gallery, 12 Cardinal Walk, London, Print sale.

2010 Ninos consentidos Festival Epiphanique-Ondée, Cova de les Cultures, Barcelona, Spain

2010 Epiphanique-Ondée (slideshow) displayed as part of the Ultra Motion/Anti-Static exhibition, ToandFor Gallery, Holloway, London, UK

 

RESIDENCIES/R&D

Spring 2024 Un Printemps Révélateur, Dalat, Vietnam, 8 week residency, part of Villa Saigon program by Institut Français

​Jan 2020 R&D for the play EMMA,  Théâtre Paris Villette, Paris

Oct-Dec 2018 Residency on Vietnamese community spaces with Cường Phạm, Raven Row gallery, AAA 

Feb-Mar 2018  R&D for the play EMMA at Théâtre de l’Escabeau, Briare, and Théâtre des Quartiers d'Ivry, France

Jan 2018 R&D for the play EMMA at Théâtre Paris Villette, Le Grand Parquet, Paris, France

Nov 2017 R&D for the play EMMA at Théâtre des Quartiers d'Ivry, France

Apr 2015 Chula Residency, Hoi An, Vietnam

 

BURSARIES and PRIZES

​Dec 2022 Phakama Bursary for A Bit of Light Here and There, with Charlie Folorunsho. People from different generations bring their family photo negatIves to the darkroom to explore, reveal and share memories.

Dec 2022 received an a-n bursary 

Jul 2021 Shortlisted for Photoworks/Jerwood Prize 

Jul 2018 Mobility First travel grant from ASEF to take part in :Playtime festival, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, An Ordinary City

Feb 2016 Phakama Bursary: pilot project Of All People with theatre maker Kate Beales, Gate darkroom, Deptford X, London

 

PERFORMANCES

​Mar& Sep 20 theatre play Enterre Moi Mon Amour (EMMA), director Clea Petrolesi, compagnie Amonine,  théâtre Paris Villette, 19 performances: I embody the photographic process on stage and turns the theatre into a darkroom

Jan 2017 Live Friday Linguamania, Asmolean Museum, Oxford with Pegasus Theatre, UK

Nov 2016 Collective Traces, Gate Darkroom group exhibition 

 

CONFERENCES AND TALKS

Oct 2023 Camera rolls and mixtapes: family history, analog archives, and diaspora placemaking, Hodan Styrene, Pragya Dithal, School of Advanced study, UCL Sarah Parker Remond Centre for the Study of Racism & Racialisation

Jun 2023 In the Photographic Darkroom, convener Sara Dominici, CREAM, University of Westminster

Light and Time Unite: History and Practice of the Gate Darkroom

 

PUBLICATIONS AND ARTICLES

2024 Academic journal PhotoResearcher (text on the history and practice of the Gate Darkroom by Carô Gervay, David Whiting and Jonathan Blower), edited by Sara Dominici

2023 by An Khoi Nguyen, What an exhibition by artists of the Vietnamese diaspora says about home and belonging, The Conversation (on our work in No Place Like Home exhibition)

By Julia Wahl, Le parcours migratoire dans (EMMA), Double jeu, la revue des Presses universitaires de Caen et Inter-Textes, la revue de l’Université de Thessalonique

2022 Asia Art Activism: Experiments in Care and Collective Disobedience, edited by Annie Jael Kwan and Joanna Wolfart. Who is Chúng Ta? Inside rooms that transform: vocal photography and fried déjà-vus (text and photos by Carô Gervay), published by Asia Art Activism, 2022

2018 Indigo Magazine: New voices from Southeast Asia and Beyond. 3 Women, Vietnamese women in family archives

(text and photos by Carô Gervay)