Exhibition + Research Catalog
Upcoming Exhibition at Hai An Gallery
Date: March-April 2026
Location: Ho Chi Minh City
Duration: 45 days
We will host an exhibition exploring the recent spread of Tibetan Buddhism in Vietnam and its intersection with personal well-being and large-scale economic transformations. Co-curated by Hoang Ngoc An and Stephen Christopher, this exhibition aims to:
- Foster dialogue with experts worldwide about DRH, Inform, and digital humanities
- Visualize DRH data on Vietnamese new religiosity
- Engage local experts who have contributed NRP entries
- Promote Digital Humanities methodologies in Southeast Asia
A 2021 exhibition at Hai An Gallery called “The Fragrance of Motherland” displaying 100 calligraphy works by Zen master Thích Nhất Hạnh.
Exhibition Co-Curator
Hoang Ngoc An
Graduate student in Museum Anthropology at Columbia University and recipient of the Fulbright Vietnamese Student Program (2024-2025). An has co-published on queer politics and minority religions, working with international research groups including USAID and The European Commission. She curated Vietnam's first exhibition series on transgender experiences (2019-2022) and coordinated content for a post-war reconciliation exhibit at the War Remnants Museum (2022).
Research Catalog
Title: Tibeto-Vietnamese Vajrayana: Origins, Adaptations & Futures
Publisher: Vajra Academic
Editor: Stephen Christopher
Abstract
After an empowerment ceremony to his Vietnamese sangha, a former student of Chöden Rinpoche explained: “No doubt about it: Vietnam is the number one fastest country [for supporting Tibetan Buddhism]. We share many commonalities: Buddhism, culture, and even history. The difficulties that Tibetans went through from the 1950s, a similar thing happened in Vietnam. These similarities bring us emotionally close to each other.” This research catalog draws on fifteen months of fieldwork between 2018-24 and quantitative data at the Database of Religious History to explore the origins, adaptations and futures of Tibetan Buddhism in Vietnam. We have coined the umbrella term ‘Tibeto-Vietnamese Vajrayana’ (TVV) to capture the diverse assemblage of mainstream lineages, religious-adjacent civic institutions, teacher-centered ‘private’ sanghas, spiritual businesses, and hybrid, syncretic, and indigenized forms across Vietnam in the past 15 years. In seven chapters, we explore how TVV is positioned within late-socialist minoritization practices; the anthropological and demographic factors driving its popularization; its transmission through new forms of media and pop culture; its adaptive changes; and how it intersects with queerness and marginalized communities in Vietnam. Each chapter has rich visual material taken from a 45-day exhibition on the same subject hosted in Ho Chi Minh City in 2026. All chapters are co-authored to enhance polyvocality.
Course Creation
OpenLearn Online Course
Lead: Suzanne Newcombe (Co-PI)
Platform: The Open University’s OpenLearn (14M annual users)
Focus: Religion, belief and worldviews
Target Audience: Secondary teachers and healthcare professionals
Inform Seminar
In Year Three, The Open University and Inform staff will host a seminar at King’s College London to promote wider distribution of project findings by reaching out to a variety of professionals and journalists who cover religion in the UK. Recordings of seminar presentations will be made freely available on YouTube and partner websites.
Panel Discussion at the Inform Seminar on Immortality: Beliefs and Practices held at King’s College London in 2018.
Conferences and Colloquia
| Date | Conference | Location | Presentation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 14-16, 2024 | 18th Annual International Conference | University of Warsaw, Poland | "A Digital Humanities Database of Japanese New Religions" |
| Sep 1-3, 2023 | Japan: Pre-modern, Modern and Contemporary | Bucharest University of Economic Studies, Romania | "A Mixed-Methods Study of Japanese Minority Religions" |
| Jun 28-30, 2023 | New Directions in the Humanities | Sorbonne University, France | "Computationally Driven Analysis of New Religions" |
| Jun 21-22, 2023 | Religion & Spirituality in Society | National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece | "Exploring the Cultural Evolution of Religion through Contemporary Practice" |
| Sep 21-23, 2022 | Cultural Evolution Society Conference | Aarhus University, Denmark | "Large-Scale Cultural Databases: The Challenges Ahead" |