Thắm Lại brings together four artists, Tường Danh, Như Xuân Hứa, Anh-Phuong Nguyen, and Vân-Nhi Nguyễn, to examine desire as progress, tracing how women’s longing has shaped Vietnamese culture across centuries. The exhibition takes its title from a line in “Mời ăn trầu” (Offering Betel), a poem attributed to the poet Hồ Xuân Hương, referencing the concept of thắm lại, the act of becoming red again, a staining that accrues through repetition and the labors of wanting. At the heart of the show is the concept of duyên: a bond written in fate, carrying people into one another’s lives and out again.