4 channel video installation with sound. Dimensions variable.
Collaboration with Artist Phunam Thuc Ha and Tuan Andrew Nguyen.

Description

After the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, over half a million Vietnamese escaped from Vietnam mostly by boat on the South China Sea. They were scattered through out the world but most resettled in Europe, Australia, and America. Many left Vietnam when they were children with little or no memory of Vietnam. This generation of Vietnamese grew up learning about Vietnam from the stories their parents told them, stories of war and poverty. Another source of their knowledge about Vietnam is through the media, mostly Hollywood movies about the Vietnam War. Vietnam for this generation is a war. Thirty years later, many are coming back to visit and live in Vietnam once again. The Imaginary Country video installation focuses on the personal struggle of these young men and women with the traumas of the past that they inherited from their parents and their coming to term with the real Vietnam, a country not a war.

Description from The Imaginary Country Exhibition, 2006.