Day 236: Nws ces tsis yog neeg lawm, nws ces nws yog duab lawm xwb.
a hall leading to a throne where three kings are seated, among the sounds of toilets flushing are faces encased with gold, I walked into moments of silence to disrupt a couple sucking face
This book was sitting in my to purchase list for a few years. I finally purchased the book and the seller also sent a postcard and stamps. Visually, the first thing I noticed in this book is how Hmong art was represented. Most images allude to textiles that were made for wall hanging, all created for a particular audience who could afford them at craft fairs and church functions. Most of the collection of art shown in the book were created in Michigan. It is not a survey of Hmong art but one that highlights the time and changes Hmong in Lansing experienced. The book was published in 1984 at time where the word Indochinese was still utilized to describe Cambodian, Lao, Thai and Vietnamese refugees.
sleep, what's that
Day 213: Mi Kuab, xyaum hlub koj tus kheej, xyaum ua neeg zoo, xyaum muab kev kawm, xyaum kom koj txoj kev xav loj tshaj lawv cov lus tsim txom, xyaum...
Day 208: she was more interested in what I was doing than what was in the space.
smells like the last time I saw you
I attended an artist talk at MIA regarding museum artifacts and the history of photography. There were many conflicting things about the talk and the photos created from juxtaposing objects that have been taken from various communities. Perhaps the most concerning thing about the exhibition at MIA was how the artist universalized women's experiences and saw women as biological. The artist also did not seem to be aware of the obvious museum history of colonialism and didn't seem to address this in the exhibition. Even though I didn't agree with everything this artist had to say, I felt compelled to understand how to construct spaces that also uses images and artifacts from museum collections. The images in the photo space that I constructed here are apart of the a huge collection at Quai Branly Museum in Paris, France. They are images that colonial French documented of ethnic groups in Tonkin, Laos, and other places in Southeast Asia. These images were used to racialize people, divide, conquer, and commodify their bodies in the name of colonial education. These images also informs a kind of Hmong imaginary about subject hood and identity in the diaspora. They the people have become images, artifacts, and memories, that have been stolen, erased, and destroyed. Can we grieve these moments that have been depicted from the gaze of our colonizers? Although the museum have collected and owned certain aspects my ancestral history am I allowed ownership of these moments? Who owns site-ings of Hmong? www.quaibranly.fr/en/missions-and-operations/