I grew up in a small town in Northern California, coddled by the suburban American dream, oblivious to the social and political mechanisms as well as my parents’ sacrifices that made my way of life possible. I never once heard of the horrors my parents survived when they escaped from war-torn Vietnam by boat: the constant fear of pirates, starvation, and witnessing family members drown.
We take for granted that the pristine and aesthetically structured world we comes at a cost. Using transformation and deception as conceptual strategies, I force the viewer to peel back the formal facade. In the process, new questions about history, memory, and identity are revealed, which offer the potential for a deeper understanding of our roles within a civil society.
There is no greater accomplishment than to be a catalyst for change, a force that is able to break people out of the mundane routine of passive acceptance.