2026
Two-channel video, projection, sound
Filmed with assistance from Vania Almeida

explores the question: can the feeling of a specific place be reconstructed outside of its original location? It centers on a personal experience of displacement in which the relationship among body, language, and environment becomes misaligned. In Vietnamese, the word "nước" means both “water” and “nation,” reflecting a long-standing connection between Vietnam's water-based landscape and the formation of cultural identity and belonging. This work begins from that connection, but focuses on what happens when it breaks apart. While water is physically present in front of the body, the sense of nation remains distant, producing a split between physical presence and imagined belonging.
The piece begins with a video of my body lying beside a body of water, looking toward its surface while listening to Vietnamese folk songs. This scene reflects an attempt to reconnect with my homeland through sensory experience. In a second video of the same location, without my presence, the audience is invited to step into the work. As they stand in front of the projection, their shadow occupies the space my body once held. However, this substitution is not aligned: the audience stands upright where my body once lay down, inside an enclosed room rather than beside the water.  Rather than reconstructing a specific place, the work recreates the unstable moment of trying to be there, while recognizing that you are not.