Du Chau: Tracing the Threads of Memory is now on view at the Crow Museum of Asian Art in the Dallas Arts District through March 2027. Free admission.
Some exhibitions ask you to look. This one asks you to remember.
Du Chau: Tracing the Threads of Memory opened April 4 at the Crow Museum of Asian Art in the Dallas Arts District and runs through March 14, 2027 — nearly a full year to visit, revisit, and let it settle into you. Free and open to the public Tuesday through Sunday, this is one of the most quietly powerful solo exhibitions Dallas has seen in years.
The Artist
Du Chau was born in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam in 1968 and immigrated to the United States in 1981. He built a career in medical pathology — working as a Pathology Technical Coordinator at Methodist Hospital of Dallas — before taking a sabbatical to pursue a BFA and MFA at the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University. He returned to Dallas and continues both careers simultaneously: working in pathology and teaching ceramics as an adjunct professor at Dallas College.
That unusual background — science and art, precision and fragility, the clinical and the deeply personal — lives in every piece he makes.
The Exhibition
The works in Tracing the Threads of Memory are built from two materials: porcelain and piano wire. The combination is not accidental. Porcelain, translucent and seemingly hollow when light passes through it, becomes a metaphor for the way memory works — present but porous, shaped by what has passed through it. The piano wire suspends each delicate ceramic form from the wall, the ceiling, or above the floor, creating installations that drift and sway like something caught between remembering and forgetting.
“The fragility and strength of porcelain act as metaphors for lived experiences — embracing caregiving, education, survival, and the quiet presence of nature,” Chau has said. The wires, created to conduct sound, now conduct something else entirely — narrative, emotion, the threads of a life lived across two continents and multiple identities.
The forms are rooted in the natural world Chau knew as a child in Vietnam — blossoming plant tendrils, willow branches, bitter gourd, seeds, fruits, herbs. Each one is a memory rendered in ceramic. Each one is also completely legible to a viewer who has never set foot in Vietnam, because the language of food, family, plants, and roots is universal.
The central work in the exhibition is Seeds of Memory, which Chau expanded specifically for this showing by incorporating both new and existing components. The additive process within the work — building outward over time — mirrors the cycles of growth and labor that defined the farming traditions of his family in Vietnam, and mirrors his own emotional journey as an immigrant navigating identity, belonging, and creative practice across decades.
Texas Ties
This exhibition is part of the Crow Museum’s Texas Ties series, dedicated to presenting artists with significant roots in Texas as part of their professional journeys. Du Chau’s connection to Dallas runs deep — he has exhibited at the Erin Cluley Gallery, serves as co-founder of Goldmark Cultural Center in DFW, has curated more than 50 national and international exhibitions, and received the 2024 Moss/Chumley North Texas Artist Award for his advocacy on behalf of the visual arts community.
His work is held in collections across the United States and internationally — in Chile, Rome, Taiwan, Nigeria, Turkey, and New York — but Dallas is where he lives, teaches, and makes his work. This exhibition is the city’s most comprehensive look at what he has built.
Plan Your Visit
The Crow Museum is free, always. It is one of the great cultural institutions in the Dallas Arts District, and this exhibition runs nearly a full year — plenty of time to bring the whole family, a first-time visitor, or just yourself on a quiet Tuesday afternoon.
Exhibition: Du Chau — Tracing the Threads of Memory Dates: April 4, 2026 through March 14, 2027 Location: Crow Museum of Asian Art, Dallas Arts District, 2010 Flora Street, Dallas, TX 75201 Hours: Tuesday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission: Free Phone: (972) 883-6430 Website: crowmuseum.org Facebook: Crow Museum of Asian Art Instagram: @crowmuseum
