The members of The Propeller Group – Tuan Andrew Nguyen, Phunam, and Matt Lucero — have referred to themselves as "a collective within a collective," given that they are headquartered at Sàn Art, the independent space in Ho Chi Minh City initiated by Nguyen (b. 1976) and fellow artists Tiffany Chung (b. 1969), Dinh Q. Lê (b. 1968), and Phunam (b. 1974) in 2007. Nguyen and Phunam informally founded The Propeller Group in 2006, when they began collaborating on documentary films and other video works; Lucero (b. 1976) joined them a couple of years later. Functioning partially as a production company for commercial projects, The Propeller Group situates itself on the cusp of contemporary art and popular culture, and the collective's involvement in one realm often informs their work in the other, challenging the lines that demarcate both categories in the process. Their multimedia projects adopt the aesthetics and language of popular culture while undermining existing strategies for the dispersion and consumption of cultural content. The Propeller Group believes that the most effective way to change a system is to work within it to create a shift in perspective. They are based in Ho Chi Minh City and Los Angeles and are represented on this site by Tuan Andrew Nguyen in a 2011 interview with SFMOMA.
