Pao Houa Her (born 1982, northern Laos / lives and works Minnesota, USA) works across multiple genres and technologies of photography to address Hmong identity and related notions of desire and belonging within the Hmong community and its diaspora. Pao holds a BFA in Photography from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, MN, and an MFA in Photography from Yale University, CT where she was the first-ever Hmong to graduate from the program. She is the recipient of many prestigious awards including the McKnight Fellowship and Jerome Foundation Grant, and she is currently Lecturer in Photography at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. Recent solo exhibitions include Attention, Minneapolis Institute of Art, and My Grandfather turned into a Tiger, Midway Contemporary Art, Minneapolis. Her work is in the collections of the Minneapolis Institute of Art, Singapore Art Museum, and MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum, among others.

Pao Houa Her: Artist Talk is part of a circuit of events with the artist organized by curator Erin Gleeson. The events mark the final public program of two exhibitions in which Pao is currently exhibiting: Depths: Others, Lands, Selves, ELEVATIONS LAOS, Vientiane, and DIASPORA: Exile, Exit, Exodus, MAIIAM, Chiang Mai. The events are made possible through the support of Elevations Laos, MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum, and Bockley Gallery. With thanks to our hosts and their teams including, Bophana Audiovisual Resource Centre, Phnom Penh; MALAO Studios, Luang Prabang; and Asian Cultural Station, Chiang Mai.