The Island by Tuan Andrew Nguyen: Video Screening

Special viewing of Tuan Andrew Nguyen’s single-channel color video The Island (2017), followed by a discussion led by Smithsonian American Art Museum Time-Based Media Curator Saisha Grayson. The forty-two minute video (with Vietnamese translation), set on the Malaysian island of Pulau Bidong, artfully combines Vietnamese refugee history with futurism to explore the impact of forced global migrations in startlingly innovative ways. The Island highlights the challenges of isolation, repercussions of state-enforced relocation, and the fundamental tension between remembering and honoring past trauma while not undermining the possibilities of a distinct future.  This special program, in collaboration with Smithsonian American Art Museum, provides a unique opportunity for Vietnamese refugees to view and reflect on their own migration experiences. Tuan Andrew Nguyen is an internationally recognized artist whose work has been shown in numerous film festivals and international exhibitions, and included in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, the Smithsonian’s American Art Museum and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. 

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