Grotesque histories of political domination and beautiful moments of intersubjective connection—for Thu Van Tran, these are both instances of contamination: a phenomenon where disparate agents come into contact, and a process that has fundamentally informed our world. Born in Ho Chi Minh City in 1979, Tran moved to France with her family at the age of two. Growing up between cultures led her to question “pure” as a descriptor of peoples, places, and histories. Subsequently, in her artworks of the last two decades, she has investigated the stains—a form of contamination—that mark the earth and its inhabitants. I caught up with the artist to discuss what tracing these residues has led her to uncover in relation to rubber tree plantations, the Amazon, and chemical weapons deployed during the Vietnam War.