Falling Stars and Stripes

My work Embody are wallpaper portraits that significantly narrate my family’s traumatic decision to migrate in search of freedom and allowed me to immerse myself in the history of my native country.   It’s a backdrop that merges the  identities of East and West, bonding cultural and political views of the war.  By pulling collective memories together, I am transmitting another’s memory, and reconstructing my own projections.  This act of revisiting my family’s journey has allowed me to recognize, appreciate and articulate the unexpected gifts that their migration to the U.S. has brought me.  The wallpaper cannibalizes identity, digesting collective content, and is also a quiet gesture presenting art in a new form.  My wallpaper portraits are depictions of my interpretations of events that unfolded during the Vietnam War, inspired from my parents and sisters journey into the dark waters of Vietnam, to the refugee camps in Malaysia, their sponsorship to Canada and their final emancipation to California.

The original portraits come from my parents personal archive.