Hoàng Trần Hiếu Hạnh

• MA International Relations (Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Potsdam)
• BA International Relations (Malmö University)

Hoàng Trần Hiếu Hạnh is undertaking a PhD at the University of Birmingham, and whose research forms part of the UKRI-funded SoundDecisions project. Hạnh’s research explores singing traditions in the Mekong Delta as sites of ecological and cultural knowledge transmission across generations. By attending to how songs are remembered, taught, and engaged with, Hạnh examines music as a way of listening to water, place, and environmental change, and as a practice through which cultural memory, belonging, and resilience are shaped.

Alongside the doctoral research, Hạnh’s practice explores the intersections of sound, environment, and memory, with particular attention to collective listening and transgenerational dialogue. This practice takes the form of performance and collaboration, combining the đàn bầu, extended techniques, electronics, field recordings, and human multivocalities across artistic, research, and community-based contexts.

Hạnh is a member of Deutsche Asiat* innen Make Noise (DAMN*) and the Mutating Kinship Lab (MKL), and maintains ongoing collaborations with sōydivision, Asian Feminist Studio for Art and Research (AFSAR) and the Mental Health Arts Space (MHAS).

Currently, Hạnh is developing Tidal Listening, a radio series for Refuge Worldwide, which brings together music, field recordings, and conversation to explore how listening practices emerge from relationships with rivers, deltas, seas, and other water bodies under conditions of environmental change.