This doctoral project will focus on the development of independent visual art since the 1990s and will explore whether this development would lead to a transformation of civil society in Vietnam. This anthropological research will concentrate on the artists and other art-makers, such as gallery owners, artists, curators, scholars, etc., who try to develop an art independently from the state. It will follow their quests for freedom of artistic expression in various fields of the contemporary art production in Vietnam, which are on the one hand still subjected to the control and censorship of the socialist state, but on the other hand also conditioned by the cultural policies of international organizations as well as by a free market. Against this background, this research will explore the aesthetics and forms of art as well as the art-makers' strategies to visualize and position their art in the social and political context in contemporary Vietnam.