A Search for the Shape of Soil

The earth is tied to our traditions. Oral and written works of art connect cultural histories to narratives specific to regional flora and fauna of land. With the loss of my father and mother in the last two years, I wander through mental and geographic expeditions, across anemic categories of nation that use the mutable designation known as borders. Cultural producers have long created works impacting how we define notions of national identity. But what about those for whom displacement severs them from that very ground?

In ecology, assemblages dismiss fixed and bounded connotations of ecological “community.” They are open-ended gatherings, revealing potential meaning in flux. In homage to my parents, I reimagine assemblages within the framework of Hòn non bộ, the art of Vietnamese Miniature landscapes. In this Vietnamese tradition, assemblages symbolize an island in the ocean, complete with forest, flora and fauna, to the stone mountains with portals thought to be the home of the gods. In the large work, my parents’ zodiac signs of the tiger and snake bound through the work and its imaginary spaces. Realized through textile and paint, my forms envelope, penetrate and permeate, dissolving and becoming new painted bodies. My aim is to create a landscape in the making, a shape interrogating fixed notions of place, and home.