An aria from Tammy Nguyen's first opera, Timaeus and The Teacher: Foreword, will be presented during the Venice Biennale's closing program on November 13 and 14. The piece explores nationhood and journeys toward freedom, created with composer Neely Bruce and choreographer Jamal Jackson. It was commissioned and produced by Wesleyan University in Connecticut, where Nguyen is an associate professor. The libretto follows The Teacher, performed by Brian Vu: a young Vietnamese man who teaches English to Chinese gold traders before attempting to flee Saigon by boat in 1977. Loosely modeled on Nguyen's father, the character becomes a vessel for questioning belonging in a world shaped by borders. The set centers on a circular tapestry inspired by the cosmological diagram in Plato's Timaeus, which dancers fold, wrap around themselves, and stretch — shifting between images of sea, ship and mountain range to collapse the distinction between human and natural forms. The project began last summer, when Nguyen — opening a solo show at Lehmann Maupin in New York — met the team behind Koyo Kouoh's Biennale exhibition In Minor Keys. After Kouoh's death, her successors asked about the flags in her sketches, and she revealed she had been writing an opera. The motif came from her Sarasota Art Museum show on flags of convenience: roughly 46 nations, many former colonies, let foreign ships sail under their flag, subjecting them to another country's labor and tax laws. Raised in San Francisco, Nguyen studied music from childhood and says she always knew she would write an opera — a project she credits with transforming her painting, pushing her toward a more direct psychological connection with viewers. The aria is only a glimpse: years of work and major fundraising lie ahead before the full opera is finished. Her paintings also appear in the Biennale's main exhibition, on view through November 22.