Textures of Remembrance

Through contemporary art and writings, the new traveling exhibit, Textures of Remembrance: Vietnamese Artists and Writers Reflect on the Vietnamese Diaspora explores a date that impacts many Vietnamese Americans: April 30, 1975, the end of the Vietnam War. Featuring works by 25 Vietnamese artists and writers, these narratives texturize the Vietnamese diasporic experience, in which refugees are not objects of rescue but instead subjects of artistic and political transformation.

April 30 is a date often remembered poignantly, especially by those of South Vietnamese descent; as well, it is a date that denotes new beginnings. On this date in1975, North Vietnamese forces captured Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, marking the end of the Vietnam War. Reflecting on this day from past to present through written words, visual creations, and audiovisual components, this interdisciplinary exhibit reveals an intimate perspective of the diasporic experience that has been gathered, created, collected and re-collected, and imagined and re-imagined since 1975.

Photo by Vi Son Trinh, 2018.