Elements of my current photographic work draw from stacks of family photos and online dream journals. Flipping through the pages of one’s own family photo album is much of a revelation to myself - recognition of nostalgia for a time that passed, but also disconnection to its traditions, its pains and stereotypes. Like Andy Warhol explains of his indifference for nostalgia - rather than keeping any of his saved mementos and ephemera around, he puts everything in labeled boxes and stores them in New Jersey, before eventually throwing them out. He doesn’t want to live with his saved materials but can’t immediately discard them either. I then think that this is almost the practice of archiving, that the influence of an archive on art practice is strong but can also be overwhelming.

The images involve my immediate friends groups as a mirror to contemporary Hanoi society. Collages of tangled images suggest an infrastructure of dependence and support, but also reanimation and an update, in which the people in it highlight the fact that dreaming has become nature to Vietnamese people.



In this work: Tạ Lê Hạnh- Thơ, the sisters Vân Lê, Dan Ni, Thái Linh, Annica, Ronny Ackah, Vũ Khôi Nguyên, Bùi Nhật Minh, Jonathan Poirier, Vũ Thu Hương, Nguyễn Nhật Minh Châu, Nguyễn Hà Phong, Nguyễn Hiếu Ngọc, Xứng, Tường Danh