How did you get into making art?
I’d love to say it started with Naruto and DevianART fan drawings, but I think it primarily started from my mother and her being the photographer of the family until she passed her Canon Powershot to me at the end of eighth grade. I’d also credit the prevalance of 2010-2013 era Tumblr and Flickr as being greatly foundational for both how I discovered many of my friends and fellow photographers as well as showing the breadth of photography available outside of what was being exposed to me during high school at the time.
What are you currently working on?
I’m finishing up on this project about the relationship between my Dad and I, and hoping to head back up to Seattle where I just left to continue making pictures for this very very in-progress book about my ex, and hoping to get a group exhibition for my curation project Arcanite Pictures in a physical space eventually. Besides that, I’m still unpacking!
What inspired you to get started on this body of work?
Initially conceived as a collaborative project about my Dad’s recovery, once he passed the pictures didn’t seem to make sense to me anymore, the purpose had just passed. It was under a different title, in color, and more about the Vietnamese identity and culture at the time too. I shelved it for about half a year until friends started suggesting I rearrange, and experiment with it, until a new working title and idea had come through.
It’s taken on innumerable iterations and approaches, something new being unveiled and added each year. A court document, a collaboration, a parting gift, an archive, an invitation. For years, each picture almost feels accidental and entirely on discovery, so it’s hard to say when I’m starting or where I’m going with it, rather that the story right now is guiding me where it wants.
Do you work on distinct projects or do you take a broader approach to your practice?
I like to think I start each project with some loose idea or statement in my head to at least have a framework, some skeleton of which each decision hinges upon. Ultimately though, I’ve been wrong in this thinking many times over, and the only thing I can really control is the edit to make something distinctive and structurally sound, but I can’t seem to work the other way around yet.
I don’t think of myself as an architect or a film producer, but rather a conductor or theater director. Each edit to me feels like a distinct performance, one that’s fluid and improvisational, and while it’s its own entity and animal, I’m just there to guide it into a new melody.
What’s a typical day like in your studio?
When I get a stable living situation, I’ll let you know!
Who are your favorite artists?
This list is gonna go on forever but here we go:
McNair Evans, Curran Hatleberg, Ian Kline, Jarod Lew, Marisa Chafetz, Joe Leavenworth, Joe Librandi-Cowan, Eileen Cowin, Reagan Louie, Ryan Frigillana, Dave Woody, Tierney Gearon, Garret Grove, Mark Steinmetz, Stephen Ross Goldstein, Henry Chastain, Keegan Holden, Rosemary Haynes, Ian Edward White, Tommy Keith, Jack Fox, Bill Ellis, Ben Brink, Paloma Dooley, Harrison Whitford, Matt Johnson, Hirokazu Kore-Eda, Hideaki Anno, Tite Kubo, Hiromi Arakawa, and Ito Ōgure.
Where do you go to discover new artists?
Arcanite Pictures, Out of Service, Baltimore Photo Space, Aperture, Instagram, YouTube, and previously any curatorial platform like FotoRoom, The Heavy Collective, and From Here on Out.
