Vo Vo is a radical educator and professional artist who has been living in Portland since 2014. Although they were born in New Zealand, Vo has also lived in many places around the world, including Germany, Australia, and Vietnam. As an educator, they have toured at universities, community organizations, and corporations, speaking on a range of crucial subjects like anti-racism, transformative justice, and abolition. In Portland, their recent artwork—a response to the growing political awareness, abolition, and the Black Lives Matter movement within the last year—has been exhibited at Fuller Rosen Gallery and Yale Union.

Vo Vo begins this interview by sharing what drew them to Portland in the first place and how this city feels different from the other places they have lived. They go on to talk about their career as an artist and radical educator, within Portland as well as all over the world. They also speak about the year 2020 and their involvement as a public abolitionist and anarchist during these times. Vo Vo then discusses the multi-faceted concept of community, finding ways to connect to the Vietnamese community here in Portland, and acknowledging their intersectional identity as a Vietnamese, queer person living in the United States. They go on to share some of their family history and shows pictures documenting the family’s time in the Songhkla refugee camp before coming to New Zealand. At the end of the interview, Vo Vo talks more about their work as a radical educator and elaborates on the process of creating and presenting curriculums about topics such as anti-racism, abolition, and intercultural communication.