Understory as Retold by Trinh Mai & Birds
Curator: Jen Dao
Artist: Trinh Mai
Installer: Nicole Lomeli
Site: Triton Museum of Art
Year: 2022
Understory as Retold by Trinh Mai & Birds was one of the first major shows we exhibited after reopening. Trinh and I connected instantly over shared life experiences and how our parents are all refugees from Vietnam. Using nature and bird metaphors, she encapsulates moments understood by our boat people such as fleeing, gathering, healing, and then building "nests" in a new country.
In an effort to examine the refugee and immigrant experience, then and now, Trinh Mai renders the stories whose threads bind our witnessing of war, our will to survive the wounds they’ve planted, and our waking from the wreckage that calls forth inevitable growth.
