Duy Nguyen

“The Sea That Swallows” by Duy Nguyen is a homage to the Vietnamese refugees who after the war fled their country by boat on the open sea. The exhibition specifically aims to explore the psychological impacts that come with migration. After the fall of Saigon in 1975, over 800 000 Vietnamese fled by boat. It was the largest refugee exodus the world had seen during peacetime. The South Vietnamese continued to flee until almost mid 90’s. Although Vietnamese people are one of the largest immigrant groups in Norway, there has rarely been focus on their stories and how they experienced the migration processes.

“The Sea That Swallows” takes an introspective poetic view, reflecting both on experiences

that happened within Nguyen´s own family and the collective history of the Vietnamese

diaspora. Nguyen uses photography, poetry and interactive installation to weave a

multifaceted and multi-layered story. Central to the exhibition is the sea and other maritime elements, which function as visual metaphors for the the Vietnamese refugees’ journeys, transformations, fears, and losses.

The exhibition also takes a critical stance to how refugees and migrants often do not get the psychological help they need to transition into their new life, simultaneously highlighting the lack of space to talk about mental health within Vietnamese and Asian culture. Both Nguyen´s parents suffered from extreme Post-traumatic stress disorder and were never treated or knew how to get help. In the end, his mother ended her own life in the same way she came into her new life in Norway – in the sea, by drowning.

The sea spits and it swallows.

You’re the mother womb of mothers.

One time you wept so hard

I forgot

how deep you can be.

Like how a boat lays refuge

on souls not ready to leave.

Or how I learned to cry

before I learned to breathe.

You break no bread,

you own no land.

Just as no man owns more

earth than that in his hand.

We clench our saline fist

and call it salvation.

Tomorrow you will crystallise,

consolidating all of me

into all of you.

Some day I’ll sail again.

Some day I’ll learn to float

in your endless sphere.

Expanding the shadows

cast by ships & hunger.

I hope one day

the boat I ride is not a lifeboat.

It’s a five-star cruise

gliding through easy shores.

Sea mother,

I swear

you broke five hearts

only to keep your own.

Do you know how I know?

Because when you drown,

the last thing you see

are bubbles through liquid glass.

Does the sea dream of stillness too?

Or does it only dream in Blue?

I learned the sun can’t penetrate

in the dark,

and the air I breathe

are from the past.

That loud thoughts make me mute.

That a mouth-to-mouth

is the closest thing to soul mating,

and that you must break two walls

to have a heart-to-heart.

To the sea that swallows,

How do I count my tears in sorrow

when my body only knows it’s a body

when another body

pumps the same blood

from different veins.

I only know that a sail lasts

through bad winds

when a soul is desperate enough

to cling,

&

how to float on wooden planks

when I don’t care where I land.