Phuong
‘It's scary to rely on (having) validation to gain entry into a country in order to express yourself and make meaningful work.’
In our photographic collaboration, we visualise our new home away from home. Sharing the struggles of migrant students in Australia facing an unstable future of the housing crisis, and challenging migration policies, we find solace in knowing what we have is each other. Dancing between displaced identities and the spaces we inhabit, we look for scenes in our everyday life that give us leeway to reimagine a home. We have a pot of ‘hoa mai’, or yellow apricot blossom, in our backyard, the flower that our families buy for our home every lunar new year. Our favourite restaurant has a mural of Ha Long bay, and we always ask them to sit us at the table next to it, even though neither of us has ever visited Ha Long. Luckily for us, the restaurant always seems empty as the waiter reluctantly brings the two of us to our six-seater round table. As we point the lens towards each other, we think of what it would mean to be here?
Phuong Nguyen Le and Minh-An Pham are Vietnamese photographers studying/settling in Naarm. They are interested in collaboration with each other and their surroundings through their photographic practice. This brings them to navigate their positionality as young migrants in so-called "Australia", while advocating for self-representation among BIPOC artists.