Resettlement Paintings

2022- 2023
Oil on canvas

These paintings were made at Studio Voltaire. They have been selected to feature on the cover of ‘Journal of Vietnamese Studies’ in 2024 with a critical text by Dr Tamsin Barber accompanied with further photos inside.

A series of paintings exploring the resettlement of Vietnamese boat refugees to the UK during 1979-1990s to the present. 

The work traces the UK’s dispersal policy, a tactic to force refugees to integrate into UK society and reduce the burden on local authority resources by spreading them around the country. 

The work attempts to re-narrate and reintegrate fragmented isolated Vietnamese experiences of growing up and living across the UK due to the dispersal policy, into the space of the gallery where these individuals can reunite, hold space and recognise each other.