The Boat

This is the project about the Vietnamese and Chinese/Vietnamese boat refugees and in particular their journey from Vietnam to refugee camps. The re-telling of those stories is filled with melancholy and hopes informed by my own experience of this journey. This work will consist of a series of photographs, drawings, sculptures and installation elements. Which attempt to recreate the sense of being inside the boat through images of people and personal objects.

I became interested in Vietnamese boat people’s tales. Many Vietnamese consider the journey from Vietnam to Australia. A painful period in their life, a time best not dwelled upon. As a response to this, I would like to record some of the different stories specific to the Vietnamese community in Australia. Although these may not often be spoken about they nevertheless affect the way that many Vietnamese relate to the present.

This installation, which is a full-scale artwork of a Vietnamese fishing boat, was first exhibited in 2001 during the Tampa crisis of the Australian Federal election. The work is a chilling reference to the thousands of refugees who fled their homes and risked their lives in order to secure a more stable and safer environment for themselves and their children.

© Dacchi Dang, 2001 All rights reserved