Sundaram Tagore Gallery presents an exhibition, featuring LE Hien Minh (ACC 2022), exploring the many ways in which artists deploy their creative skills to shape perceptions, challenge norms and foster critical thinking.  

Soft Power brings together paintings, sculptures and photography from a global group of artists who harness art’s transformative power to amplify marginalized voices, particularly women and those from underrepresented cultures. 

A concept popularized in the late 1980s by international relations scholar Joseph Nye, “soft power” is the ability to wield influence through persuasion rather than coercion or force. Soft power forges connection through the strategic use of storytelling over rhetoric. In the political sphere, a nation’s soft power assets are built on cultural and educational exchanges, diplomacy and the promotion of ideals and values. 

In the context of art, soft power lies in the capacity to move viewers through emotion, aesthetic beauty, evocative imagery and compelling narrative. When associated with the feminine, soft power can be a potent tool of influence to challenge traditional ideas surrounding gender and power by illuminating the strength and complexity of feminine perspectives and experiences.