Heirlooms
Quynh Harris
Heirlooms explores connection in intergenerational relationships of the Asian-American diaspora. Delving into my own experience as a second-generation immigrant, my thesis unfolds through three interconnected pieces based on preservation and interpretation, each representing a different family member: mad, dom, and bà ngoại (grandmother).
Boat Story is an interactive installation based on the story my mom told me growing up—a tale of action, pirates, and secret islands; her immigration. Escaping Saigon as a child, she became one of the near-million boat people. Boat Story comprises historical photos and cover sheets scribbled with my childlike reimaginations, juxtaposing innocent interpretation with her reality. The piece captures the elusive nature of storytelling and how positionality rewrites oral histories.
Dad Book is a collection of my dad’s life’s work as a columnist for The Los Angeles Times. From the age of 13, he would often email me articles of his to read. To recontextualize and further encapsulate his life, photos from our family album are woven into the articles, along with my own footnotes which serve as a dialogue between me and my dad.
Bà Ngoại’s Phở is a video capturing the process of making my bà ngoại’s recipe for phở. With the audio of her spoken instructions guiding me through, there are two-track subtitles: the top subtitles are a transcript of her Vietnamese, and the bottom track is my broken interpretation. The video serves to preserve her recipe whilst highlighting the disconnect between our language and the connection of food.