“Between Worlds” Trailer
Trailer for the “Between Worlds” episode from Season 12 of Art in the Twenty-First Century, featuring artists Sophie Calle, Lubaina Himid, Tuan Andrew Nguyen, and Dyani White Hawk.
The internationally acclaimed artists in “Between Worlds” work at intersections and crossroads using their artistic practices to make sense of complex histories of colonization and migration, find common ground between cultures, and break down divides that otherwise seem fixed.
Directed by Bryan Chang and the Meerkat Media Collective production team.
Premiered Friday, October 17, 2025, online and on PBS.
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Sophie Calle was born in 1953 in Paris, France, and lives and works in Malakoff, France. Working across photography, installation, text, performance, and video, Calle playfully explores themes central to the human experience, such as death, desire, love, and loss, often with the assistance of collaborators who may or may not know they are participating in the work. In her practice, Calle constructs specific conditions to create her works: inviting friends and strangers to sleep in her bed and be photographed, taking a cross-country road trip with a video camera, or only consuming monochromatic foods. Across this body of work and set of methods that defy neat categorization, the artist investigates the boundaries between the self and the other, realizes universal human truths, and collapses distinctions between art and life.
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Lubaina Himid was born in 1954 in Zanzibar, Tanzania, and currently lives and works in Preston, United Kingdom. She received a BA at Wimbledon College of Art in 1976 and an MA from the Royal College of Art in 1984. Through her paintings, installations, and sculptures, Himid creates platforms for viewers to engage with pressing questions about race, gender, class, and history. Working on traditional canvases, cut-out cardboard portraits, or repurposed domestic furniture, the artist calls attention to forgotten marginalized histories and people and connects them to the present. An early pioneer of the Black Arts Movement, Himid has been an advocate for inclusion in the art world, curating exhibitions and creating spaces for Black female artists in the United Kingdom.
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Tuan Andrew Nguyen, born in 1976 in Saigon, Vietnam, currently lives and works in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. He received his BA in Studio Art from the University of California, Irvine, in 1999 and his MFA from the California Institute of the Arts in 2004. Throughout his work in video and sculpture, Nguyen explores the use of art as a tool for healing the traumas of colonialism, imperialism, and war that reverberate through communities and generations. His works often focus on lost or erased histories and the retrieval of these narratives through community engagement, speculative fiction, and fantastical propositions in order to bridge the gap between official archives and lived experiences. Throughout Nguyen’s work, collaboration and storytelling are vital tools for understanding history, finding empathy, and moving toward healing.
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Dyani White Hawk was born in 1976 in Madison, Wisconsin, and currently lives and works in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She received her Associate in Arts Degree from the Haskell Indian Nations University, her Bachelor’s in Fine Arts from the Institute of American Indian Arts, and her Master’s in Fine Arts from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Across varied media, including painting, beadwork, mosaic, video, and performance, White Hawk brings attention to the traditions, techniques, and aesthetics of Lakota art practices, celebrating their beauty and conceptual rigor and placing them in the lineage of Western abstraction.
