Nostalgia

Nostalgia

Nostalgia explores the liminal space between the private and the public through a series of photographs taken using a pinhole camera. The photographs are based on my memories of my life in my first home in Australia at the Enterprise Migrant Hostel in Springvale and its surrounds.

The hostel was home to many diasporic Vietnamese and was a cultural front line where many refugees were introduced to Australian food, culture and customs. Thirty-eight years later, in Summer 2020, I returned to this temporary home and found it had changed beyond recognition.

During those hot summers in the early eighties my family and I layered our footprints along this footpath in our journey to the supermarket for a completely new style of everyday food. We also took special journeys on the weekends, always travelling the same paths to the train station heading to Flinders Street station and from there to Melbourne’s Chinatown for more familiar cuisine.

In today’s Springvale, the Vietnamese community has established its own cultural environment. While spending time observing the activities in the town square and wandering around the neighbourhood, I became fascinated with how the Vietnamese have used, created or claimed the public space by turning it into their own cultural or private space within the larger Springvale area.

© Dacchi Dang, 2020 All rights reserved