Recipes of Life
2025Socially engaged artwork
Multi-channel video installation
Recipes of Life is a community recipe sharing and cooking project blurring the boundaries between social arts practice, therapeutic community approaches and continuing projects from the now closed Vietnamese Mental Health Services and the Social Kitchen. The Recipes for Life is a therapeutic concept developed by Australian therapist and chef, Natalie Rudland-Wood (2012). The approach uses food and recipes, to thicken the 'thin' or forgotten stories of people's lives in ways that make people stronger.
The Deptford X version will be an exhibition launching in July 2025 as part of the core commissions at Deptford X Arts Festival.
Commissioned by Deptford X, with the funding from Arts Council England.
Photo by Kvet Nguyen
https://deptfordx.org/
Photos of:
Making Recipes of Life Hot Pot at Reimagining VMHS Workshop, October 2023
Making Summer Rolls, Spring Rolls and Mango Salad at Central Park Cafe Newham Festival of Stories, November 2024
Making Vietnamese Lemonade at Royal College of Art, MA Sculpture, Annual Festus programme, November 2024
Making Hai Phong Crab Noodle Soup at Evelyn Community Centre, December 2024
Making Recipes of Life Hot Pot at Reimagining VMHS Workshop, October 2023
Making Summer Rolls, Spring Rolls and Mango Salad at Central Park Cafe Newham Festival of Stories, November 2024
Making Vietnamese Lemonade at Royal College of Art, MA Sculpture, Annual Festus programme, November 2024
Making Hai Phong Crab Noodle Soup at Evelyn Community Centre, December 2024
Making Banh Gio Vietnamese Pyramid Dumplings at ESEA Community Centre, February 2025
Newham Recipes for Life
2024Funded by Newham Council Festival of Stories
In collaboration with Nancy Nhat Vu. Borrowing from the VMHS/Social Kitchen project, Recipes of Life, involving local community chefs and sharing stories.
Newham Festival of Stories
https://www.newhamfestivalofstories.org/
https://www.newhamfestivalofstories.org/events/newham-recipes-for-life/
Islands of Safety
2024Islands of Safety was a 3 hour workshop led by myself for Festus, NESTING project led by Whiskey Chow, MA Sculpture, Royal College of Art.
Photos by Whiskey Chow.
Similarly to the workshop I taught in 2023 for MA students on Across RCA, this workshop continued themes looking at excercises and principles from the Vietnamese Mental Health Services.
We began students by doing a string connections game to warm up students to talking and sharing experiences of priviledge, each ball of string was passed onto another student who had listened to another student and felt a connection. We continued the game until the ball finished and resulted in a web of connections.
Secondly we watched a video clip from the BBC where they featured the Recipes of Life project ran by the Vietnamese Mental Health Services and the Social Kitchen. We watched as participants from that workshop shared testimonies escaping Vietnam by boat, and also sharing recipes and stories of resilience. I then shared pamphlets and information from the VMHS then demonstrated my own recipe my mum shared with me, Vietnamese Lemonade. Participants helped to create this and also took turns to cut and squeeze the lemon the Vietnamese way. We then drank together and it was very engaging for students who were shy.
We ended the workshop doing a body mapping excercise, connecting feelings emotions and the physical body through a somatic approach. Participants would lay on a yellow table cloth and map out their bodies, and through a series of mark making, annotations and colours, were able to identify each others feelings, present-ness in the room and ability to support one another.
A catalogue called FESTUS was created along with the other teaching groups and some notes are shown in the photos.
You Belong Here
Southbank Centre2024
Spoken word performance reading by Will Pham, followed by set list of songs by the VLC Band.
You Belong Here explores why we all feel the very human need to belong in our communities and our spaces. This performance is reminiscent of parties and Summer Fairs run by Jack Shieh and the Vietnamese community back in 2007 in Burgess Park, reflecting and celebrating the Vietnamese community in the UK.
With thanks to VLC Band and Guests: Dan Tran, Doc Ngo, Thanh Long, Frankie, Hung, Hùng, Quang, Ngọc Nga, Quyen, Duy Khiêm saxophonist.
https://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whats-on/festivals-series/you-belong-here
https://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whats-on/performance-dance/esea-unseen-happenstance?eventId=990589
Photo credit: Peter Woodhead
Audio recording listen click here.
Legends
2024HD video, stereo sound
12 mins
Participants: Julia Thanh, Dr Tamsin Barber, Keith, Huyen
Camera and sound assist: Andy Dolan
This project is funded by the Elephant Trust Award.
This film explores irregular migration from Vietnam to the UK with the support of Dr Tamsin Barber’s research. This project continues legacy of the Vietnamese Mental Health Services because they wanted to continue research and support to irregular migrants mental health needs due to their traumatic migration experience.
The work explores the ways in which migrants are encouraged to craft a ‘legend’, in order for them to pass hostile immigration borders to allow refuge in the UK.
The video emphasises the use of performance and storytelling based on individual and collective trauma vs bureaucratic legislative language.
This work is screened followed by an in conversation with Will Pham, Dr Diana Yeh and Dr Tamsin Barber.
https://lux.org.uk/event/new-work-screening-will-pham/
New Works Film screening at LUX London, Saturday 23rd March 2024 2pm-4pm. In conversation with Dr Diana Yeh and Dr Tamsin Barber. Photo credits: Ada Hao, Yash Zhang
A Night of Performances:
CHÚC MỪNG NĂM MỚI
(with the VLC Band and Invited Friends)
2024Live performance, 60 mins
HD video, stereo sound, 10 min
Participants: Koa Pham, Trâm Nguyen, VLC Band (Dan Tran, Doc Ngo, Thanh Long, Frankie, Hung, Hùng, Quang, Ngọc Nga, Quyen).
Photo credit: Vero Chen, Courtesy of Asymmetry
Commissioned by Asymmetry Art Foundation on Friday 23rd February 2024, ‘A Night of Performances with bones tan jones, Will Pham & VLC Band, 6:30pm-9pm to inaugurate Asymmetry’s new public space.
This continues the engagement with the Vietnamese Mental Health Services because the Vietnamese community used music, community events, and festivals, to combat sense of isolation and fragmentation when resettling into the UK. The themes of loneliness, idleness, and processing of traumatic experiences found a release in singing, community bands and joyful celebrations.
A live performance of nostalgic songs by the VLC band from Centre 151, a Hackney-based community centre set up in 1985, formerly known as the Community Centre for Refugees from Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia (VLC).
Evoking memories of the artist’s experience attending events at the VLC Centre when he was little, Pham brings together the band with invited friends, Koa Pham and Trâm Nguyen.
Rehearsal photos with Mr Lai and Koa Pham at Centre 151 on Saturday 10th February 2024. Photos by Will Pham.
Asia Art Pacific May/June 2024 publication mentioning the performance and launch of Asymmetry Art Foundations new space.