This performance and scenography attempt to queer the Third World futurism in architecture by revisiting the 1964 New York World’s Fair and the Osaka Expo ‘70. Both global expositions acted as platforms where newly independent nations asserted their identity through intentional architectural and performative displays. The pavilions served as statements of national modernity and instruments of cultural diplomacy, blending artistic, historical, and sensory elements. The late 1950s to the 1970s were a period when the ambitions and utopian dreams of these nations' decolonization and modernization unfolded within the constraints of Cold War geopolitics. The work provocatively castrates Cold War binary powers, imagining a Third World futurism undivided by global ideologies. By referencing focal points from both events and integrating innovations in tropical modernist architecture, the piece reimagines these emergent modernities, highlighting how such nations negotiated identity, ambition, and futurity as a “middle way” in a contested international arena.

Arlette Quỳnh-Anh Trần is an art laborer based in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Her artworks combine political discourse with science fiction aesthetics, employing historical archives and architecture with multimedia installation. Tran is engaged with the concept of futuristic Third World utopias, where political ideals are reimagined, allowing for the coexistence and integration of human and non-human entities. She cofounded the Art Labor collective, working at the intersection of visual arts and other disciplines in public contexts. Tran’s individual and collective works have been exhibited in nGbK Berlin, Prospect New Orleans, Hawaii Triennale, National Gallery Singapore, Lagos Biennial, Albertinum Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Asia Culture Center Gwangju, Hessel Museum of Art, Carnegie International, Centre Pompidou Paris, and Leeum Museum of Art. She was SYNAPSE Fellow at HKW Berlin; Art in Networks Fellow at TU Dresden; Margaret F. Williams Memorial Fellow at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco; and New York Fellow of the Asian Cultural Council.