“Borderless” a Site specific performative installation
For Awashima, Setouchi 2025, Japan
Work 1: Immigrating Garden Temple
Location: At an abandon Shrine near the Awashima Fishing Port.
Included: 3 Videos installation includes, Mugwort incense, gift objects
from Awashima elders, found objects, variety of Vietnamese plant bonsais
made by islanders and volunteers, Vietnamese plant list coming to the island.
Work 2: Light House Garden
Location: At a former Awashima Elementary School
Included: Bamboo structure, tea table, found objects from Former Awashima
Elementary School, variety of Vietnamese vine plants, Variety of Vietnamese
Bonsais made by islanders and volunteers.
[Borderless|] Vietnamese Immigrating Garden_No.11
The Vietnamese Immigrating Garden No.11 uses Vietnamese plants as living archives of migration, survival, and cultural resilience. These plants—many of which were carried by immigrants across borders along their migrating journeys —they connect deeply to the mental/emotional well-being of diasporic communities while also pointing toward larger political histories and realities.
Awareness about Plants rooted deeply in Vietnamese culture. From oldest epic [Birth of the Land and the Water] by Muong people which wrote that a Plant appeared on the earth first, and then it created human out of its branches, to one of oldest religion‘The Mother Goddess’ which centrally prays the gods of nature and plants. Vietnamese culture developed together with metaphors of plant, nature spirits, large agriculture, herbal medicines. The knowledges passing down through generations.
In the modern day, when people are moving away more and more, they are still trying to carry such strong connections and feeling that related to their plants. It reminds them about family memories, about concept of home-land, or idea of living the past to the future. I found out that everywhere Vietnamese people move to, they will bring their gardens with them. And as nature of it, people keep sharing, being together in order to maintain and protect the resources, in other hand, it keeps them connected to their roots. Additionally, it is also perceived as a shared effort of adaptation and survival in a foreign environment, much like the struggle for existence experienced by Vietnamese migrants.