"All wars are fought twice, the first time on the battlefield, the second time in memory."
Việt Thanh Nguyễn
The Vietnam-American War was the first televised war in history; anything in association with it has long been framed and filtered by the American media. To many people, Vietnam is not a country; it is a time period, an era of senseless violence and suffering, losses and traumas. The notorious reputation of the War immortalised Vietnam as a symbol of death and, in some cases, a euphemism for a “stupid mistake.” Whenever I meet someone, I am forced to confront that person’s conception of what Vietnam is to them, what constitutes Vietnam, and how they negotiate these constructed identities and histories. I have a hard time reconciling the multiple versions of my home country, with many of them sharing little relationship or reference to my own lived experiences.
Finding “Vietnam” is a series of visual investigations into the multi-faceted narratives often attached to the name “Vietnam”. As a nonresident alien residing in the USA, I am fascinated by the “Vietnam” that exists in America’s imagination. I want to create a series of projects that investigate, dissect and challenge the myths about “Vietnam”, and how they have informed me and, by extension, my generation.
Finding "Vietnam" consists of five projects:
Vietnam, Viet Nam: A digital archive of Vietnam references in American popular media. Through this archive, it is evident that besides Vietnam the country, there are many other “Vietnams” that exist in America’s imagination.
Loving Him is Red: A desktop performance that examines the experience of growing up enshrouded in propaganda. The structure and aesthetic style of the performance is a homage to a well-known trend on TikTok, called “#toploader decorations”, where devoted fans record themselves decorating and embellishing photocards of their beloved celebrities with an often excessive amount of stickers.
The One where they Vietnam: An interactive, hypertext FRIENDS episode, where all the dialogues, jokes and punchlines are about “Vietnam”. The dialogues used in this project are real-life “Vietnam” references that were compiled from 25 well-known American sitcoms and curated into a 26-minute interactive experience. The project is designed to play out like a sitcom episode, where the player can interact with the dialogues, shuffle through the jokes, mix and match to uncover the best “Vietnam” punchline that will make the audience laugh.
Good Morning, Vietnam!: A smart voice assistant (Google Home) that renders any positive information to “America”, and negative information to “Vietnam”. The Vietnam–American War was the first televised war in history; anything in association with it has long been framed and filtered by the American media. I have a hard time reconciling the multiple versions of my home country, with many of them sharing little relationship or reference to my own lived experiences. At the same time, I find the switch between loving America and hating Vietnam fascinating. What is it like to live in an echo chamber, where the only binaries are “Vietnam” and “America”?
"Vietnam" in America's Imagination: A series of tour guides that showcase all the locations chosen by Hollywood directors to recreate and film Vietnam or Vietnam-adjacent movies. The locations are ranked based on how similar they are to the actual “Vietnam”, which, according to Hollywood, means jungles, rice paddies, random colonial buildings, submissive non-white people who speak broken English, and helicopters. When put together, they build a stereotypical portrayal of “Vietnam” as a helpless, savage community that needs to be rescued by white people, further promoting “Vietnam” as a myth, a caricature, an American orientalist fantasy.
As of current, 3 out of 5 projects are still under development.
The installation will showcase 5 aforementioned projects, with each representing a different aspect of this mythical, otherwordly “Vietnam”. Through the installation, I want to call attention to the underlying biases in the media portrayal of Vietnam and Vietnamese people as a community and explore tools of art, design and technology to rewrite dominant narratives and unpack the cultural histories that have been hidden for decades.
