In her compelling new film for High Line Originals, co-commissioned with CHANEL Culture Fund, Nguyen explores the obscure nuclear history of Westbeth Artist Housing’s building—the former headquarters for Bell Laboratories, a research facility tied to the development of communication technologies and, later, the atomic bomb. Inspired by a severed fragment of the original High Line freight rail left embedded in Westbeth’s facade, and the High Line’s own history of transformation, Nguyen reflects on the historical narratives that persist—and those quietly erased—within sites of adaptive reuse.

You’re invited to the premiere of Nguyen’s new work Prior Occupants, co-commissioned by High Line Art and CHANEL Culture Fund. Following the screening, the artist will be joined in conversation by High Line Art Associate Curator, Taylor Zakarin, to discuss her practice and this exciting new work.

Part of High Line Channel, High Line Originals is High Line Art’s commissioning program for artists working in time-based media. This initiative invites emerging or underrecognized US-based artists, nominated by a trusted group of contemporary curators, to submit a proposal for a new video work that considers the context of the park in a meaningful way and will resonate with our diverse audience.

High Line Originals launched in 2019 with Tourmaline’s Salacia, which is now held in the Museum of Modern Art’s permanent collection. Other past commissions include Onyeka Igwe’s The Miracle on George Green (2021), and Alicia Mersy’s NYC Wisdom (2024). In 2025, High Line Art partnered with CHANEL Culture Fund, and together co-commissioned Frank WANG Yefeng’s Groundless Flower – ཨ (2025).

About the Artist:

Alison Nguyen (b. 1986, Wilmington, Delaware) is a visual artist working across video, installation, performance, and sculpture. Using approaches of speculative fiction, documentary research, and embodied performance, Nguyen creates works that reconsider how narratives operate within the individual, the institution, the archive, and within the politics of cultural memory.

Nguyen lives and works in New York, New York. Solo screenings and exhibitions of her work have been presented at Storefront for Art and Architecture, New York, New York (2026); Art Basel Hong Kong Encounters, Hong Kong (2025); Murmurs, Los Angeles (2024); Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York (2023); MIT List Center for Visual Arts, Cambridge, Massachusetts (2023); and e-flux, Brooklyn, New York (2023). Nguyen has participated in group exhibitions and screenings at the Busan Biennial, Busan, South Korea (2026); Kunsthalle Mechelen, Mechelen, Belgium (2026); Vienna Secession, Vienna, Austria (2024); EMAP x Frieze Seoul Film, Seoul, South Korea (2024); National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Korea, Seoul, South Korea (2023); The Everson Museum, Syracuse, New York (2022); The Dowse Art Museum, Lower Hutt, New Zealand (2021); The International Studio & Curatorial Program, Brooklyn, New York (2019 & 2020); KAJE, Brooklyn, New York (2020); and Microscope Gallery, Brooklyn, New York (2017).

She has participated in film festivals around the world, including Oberhausen International Film Festival, International Shorts Online (2021); CPH:DOX, Copenhagen, Denmark (2021); Edinburgh International Film Festival, Edinburgh, United Kingdom (2021); Ann Arbor Film Festival, Ann Arbor, Michigan (2020); Open City Documentary Festival, London, United Kingdom (2019); Channels Festival International Biennial of Video Art, Melbourne, Australia (2019), and True/False Film Festival, Columbia, Missouri (2018); among others.

Nguyen has received residencies and fellowships from Pioneer Works, New York Foundation for the Arts Artist Fellowship in Film/Video, International Studio & Curatorial Program, The Institute of Electronic Arts, BRIC, and Squeaky Wheel Film and Media Art Center. She was a 2023-2024 Studio Fellow at the Whitney Independent Study Program.

Photo Credit:
Alison Nguyen, Prior Occupants, 2026 (still). Courtesy of the artist.