When attending an art exhibition, one typically thinks quiet, pensive, methodical, and that hands-helds-behind-the-back pose like on an early morning stroll with your fifty-year lover. Spine hunched and gaze squinted to study every molecule of the piece in front of you.

Not at Ngã Ba.

A multi-media Vietnamese art exhibition curated by Jason Nguyẽn, artist and change-maker born in Vietnam who moved to the United States at the age of ten, naturalized at eighteen, and is now owner of the brand Nguyẽn Dynasty. The first Ngã Ba art exhibition found itself landed at Little Jupiter Cafe, a small independently-owned coffee shop sandwiched between a pizza place and a nail salon in an otherwise quiet suburban stripmall in Gilbert, Arizona.

As a barista at Little Jupiter Cafe, I was scheduled to work the exhibition the night of Saturday, August 30th, under the impression I’d be making a few Vietnamese coffees, dishing out some Thai tea, plating a couple honeycomb cake slices, and hitting the good ol’ hands-behind-the-back pose, too.

What transpired, rather, was a complete redefinition of what an art exhibition could be.

Ngã Ba, meaning ‘threeway intersection’ in Vietnamese, aimed to create a visualization of the Vietnamese diaspora in America via photography, recreations of household settings, video installation, soundscapes from Vietnamese city life and music, and other mixed media. Described by Jason as: “An intersection between memory, identity, and culture. Between past and present, heritage and change, pain and healing, reconnect with your roots and imagine a future shaped by compassion, unity, and justice. Welcome home.”

“Liminalty. Dual identity. Cultural crisis.”

As I arrived for my shift providing Vietnamese drinks specifically curated for the event, there stood already a buzzing line of people waiting at the front door, inches from the glass.

For the next four straight hours—the entirety of the event—I slung Thai tea like my life depended on it, something that no one had predicted. At one point in the blur of it all, as I felt like I had been truly whisked to a Saigon streetcorner, or maybe the midnight hour at Gracie’s on First Friday, I realized an evolution happening in front of me.

The event transformed from a space with fertile ground for careful thought with slow steps and into an immersive moment carried by the honks of scooters and twang of Phương Tâm.

Imagine it sounding something like this:

(I encourage you to let this play during your read for a closer taste of the moment.)

At Ngã Ba, guests did not have the expected room to ponder the art. Instead, becoming flesh-to-piece in a moment with air so energized you could feel the static charge through your fibers, each person had only the ability to become the art.

There were no longer stark lines between observer and piece, only the moment.

As an active contributor to the ecosystem of Ngã Ba’s culture, connection, and energy that night, I had the unique privilege of being one of the few people still sectioned away from the epicenter of the chaos, preserving the slightest bit of that typical viewer-art dynamic of observation. While my arms really did not stop pouring for hours, I am grateful to have had even the smallest position of fly-on-the-wall as resident drink-maker for the moment.

It was absolutely fascinating getting to watch what could have seemed disastrous—an art exhibition held in a space too small cramped with too many patrons, leaving no room for a holistic, concentrated study of the curated pieces—serendpitiously morph into a visualization of indeed the beating heart of it all: the need for closeness and creation of it.

A few days later, I sat down with Jason back at the coffee shop, in the same seats that had prior been a Vietnamese living room, and had the pleasure of discussing the fact that so many people showed up, and his feelings on what it means for the Vietnamese diaspora’s cultural moment.

  JULIET REYNOLDS: I was behind the bar making drinks, so I didn't really get to converse with everyone and be in the mix of it all, but I could just feel the connection happening around me. What was the reception of the actual exhibition? What were the feelings from everyone?

JASON NGUYẼN: There were a few people who came up to me and got emotional. A couple of them cried because of how deeply this had touched them in some way or another. Whether they recently lost a loved one, or the exhibition reminded them of their grandparents or their parents. Hearing the sounds of the scooters and different sounds of Vietnam through the speakers, actually seeing the scooter as well… That's something that really made me realize the community was craving these types of events and gatherings.

REYNOLDS: One of the comments that I did overhear from a guest while I was handing out drinks was that they felt like they were home. To be able to really curate a genuine sense of home from so far away, here in this town, is amazing.

NGUYẼN: Thank you. That was the whole purpose of this exhibition, to transform each corner of this space into something that could bring back nostalgia to a lot of people. From the scooters to the night and day video installation, and then also a corner of a Vietnamese kitchen. And then here, I know we took down the artworks, but, curating a corner of a living room.

REYNOLDS: Do you want to talk more about what this specific corner looked like that night?


NGUYẼN: We curated this small corner right here to replicate a Vietnamese home mixed with American influence. In Vietnam, I grew up with every home that I'd been in having an altar to worship your ancestors. We had the traditional altar vases, flowers, fruits, offerings. But then, combined with other Americanized influences, I put CDs of Paris by Night. Not a lot of people know about Paris by Night besides the Vietnamese community. Paris By Night is kind of a show—not really a show—more of like a concert. It's like, three hours long and filled with plays, music, jokes, and just like, different types of artists.

REYNOLDS: A little bit of everything.

NGUYẼN: A little bit of everything! A little bit of everything came together here for the Vietnamese diaspora. A lot of [people] connected to this, it’s their childhood. It's what they grew up on. I also got a tea set and other small knickknacks that could remind them of who they are and where they came from.

REYNOLDS: Were these items things that were hard to source, or were they things that you already had?

NGUYẼN: A lot of these items I'd already been collecting throughout the years. Basically I just brought my own furniture. [laughs]

REYNOLDS: You LITERALLY brought your home here. [laughs]

NGUYẼN: Some items I thrifted, some I brought over here from Vietnam and others from when my parents and I moved here to America back in 2008. I think it's really beautiful. I did have to source some stuff, like the red plastic chairs. They're all over Vietnam, but it was incredibly hard to find over here.

REYNOLDS: Where did you end up getting them?

NGUYẼN: I had to go over to Orange County; over there they have Little Saigon and it was still really difficult to find those chairs in that color. And I needed to find it in the red color because a lot of people recognize them because of the color. I needed those chairs to make this space, to recreate that sense of the street corners in Vietnam.

Those chairs kind of represent who we are as well. They’re flexible. You can stand on them, stack them, use them as a ladder, you know? It represents the Vietnamese DNA of being resilient and being adaptable to change.

REYNOLDS: To really set the scene from Saturday night, it was packed in this shop. Do you know how many people there were?


NGUYẼN: I do not know 100% how many people showed up, but based on the sales you guys did, I think it was like over two hundred items sold.

REYNOLDS: I felt like I made a million drinks.

NGUYẼN: I was told that apparently you guys were making a drink a minute.

REYNOLDS: It felt like that. [laughs]

NGUYẼN: Which is crazy because it takes like, thirty seconds just to pull a shot [of espresso]. You guys did an amazing job of creating all these drinks.

REYNOLDS: Thank you. I mean, you made the menu.

NGUYẼN: We curated it together, [Little Jupiter Cafe owner] and I, but, you making Vietnamese drinks for the first time was absolutely incredible. A lot of people loved it, and people have been making TikToks saying that you guys need to keep the Thai tea and Vietnamese coffee on the menu.

REYNOLDS: I agree, because it was so good. It was honestly the best Thai tea I’ve ever had. We'll see what the boss man says. [laughs]

NGUYẼN: I can share the secret recipe later. [laughs]



REYNOLDS: You mentioned that places like Orange County have Little Saigon, but how expansive is the Vietnamese community here in Phoenix? How connected? Had there been a need for people to come together?

NGUYẼN: Yes, the problem that we're kind of fixing within the Vietnamese community is that there’s a little bit of a lack of sympathy. There's a lot of the previous generation that are stuck in a mindset, or a time capsule, that is filled with trauma. And it's totally understandable. They had to flee a country, they came here refugees, and they had to adapt and survive in whatever way that they could, right? And sometimes that causes them to be less sympathetic. It hardens their heart. It's further fueled by then stepping over one another just to survive. Because of that, I feel like we’ve lost our sense of humanity for other people and other cultures and even ourselves, we kind of shut the doors behind us to only make sure that we thrive. And I think that’s a bit selfish for us to do because we grew up on a sense of community. In Vietnamese culture, everybody is connected together. It’s very welcoming, it's very community-oriented and collectivist. Over here, everybody's just so individualistic. When you mentioned Orange County, I feel like, yes, Orange County is very proud of who they are. They are very vocal about a lot of things. But at the same time, those voices kind of shut down the true message of our community. The reason why I wanted to do this exhibition was to challenge the previous generation's mindset. Now, other people in the same situation are facing the same challenges, so we need to extend our hand as well and be welcoming and unite with each other. I think that's the only way to move forward and to heal from our trauma.

REYNOLDS: There was so much pride in this room, it was practically tangible.

Do you have a vision already for what’s to come in the future, or are you going to sit in this present moment and bask in the success of everything?

NGUYẼN: I don’t measure success by the revenue or how many people came. I measure success through the impact that we made on each person here. How many people felt connected, how many people felt like they dug deeper into their own culture and heritage and power of who they are. So seeing that, I want to do more. And I want to keep the concept of Ngã Ba…I want to be able to use this crossroads to bring people back to a space where we connect and we move forward and we heal with one another…It was an amazing night.

If you can’t find it, you can create it.

With Jason’s curation, the first Ngã Ba event became an experience found within the threeway intersection of understanding, pride, and warmth. Viewers became unknowing tiles within the mosaic of the entire energetic whole.

The curation of a moment, dropping us right onto the streets of Vietnam, all gathered in closeness beyond just physicality to wait for a Thai tea and piece of honeycomb cake.

An antithesis to the traditional art exhibition, heightened in all ways by an overwhelm of community support.

After last call came and went, and the final attendees said their goodbyes, I finally granted myself my own piece of cake. The only one left, every piece had gone to contributors to the whole. I sat there on the bar, tucked behind the tired espresso machine under the dimmed fluorescent lights, for a moment finally able to live and breathe in peaceful tandem with the space. What remained then only were the lyrics of Anh Khoa’s Phút Cuối floating around, echoing about the red chairs’ plastic and bouncing off the scooter’s plating as I took my last bite.

Since the conducting of this interview, Jason has excitingly begun the coordination of the next moment, happening on December 13th, 2025 in Austin, Texas:

Ngã Ba: Intersection of Love.

In Jason’s words, “The next Ngã Ba art exhibition is about the theme of love in Viet culture. Romantic love, family, queer love, heartbreaks… As well as traditional expectations that are toxic, but still kept to this day due to the responsibility and sacrifices that we make for our parents and our children.”

“The exhibition will showcase love in a way that is uncomfortable and taboo.”

Oh and, Thai tea HAS been added permanently to the Little Jupiter Cafe menu.