Vở ô ly

 (2024 - ongoing)

Tiếng Việt 🇻🇳 /  English 🇬🇧


As filmmaker Bạch Đăng Tùng writes: 
‘Việt Nam,’ written in my mother tongue, is made up of two different words: ‘Nam’ and ‘Việt.’ Separated—a chasm between them. Then came the English spelling: ‘Vietnam.’ Never mind the loss of accent marks, anglicisation has taken the liberty of wiping out that gap without even the courtesy of asking what this distance could mean, what caused it, and what secrets are buried within.’

To be closer to my father’s war stories, I have to unlearn the memory landscape that has been obscured since my childhood.

Photographs reprinted on Vietnamese student notebook paper, handwriting, felt pen, ballpoint pen, color markers
An excerpt from Thành Phẩm

*Rough Cut, 2024, Đăng Tùng Bạch