Giving Form to Refugee Memory: Ann Le’s Embody Wallpaper Portraits

Abstract

In Vietnamese American artist Ann Le’s 2012 Embody Wallpaper Portraits series, wallpaper designs of repeating collaged and silhouetted documentary Vietnam War photographs cover the skin and faces of the artist’s own family portraits. The bodies of these haunting and preserved figures serve as sites of forged encounter between public and private photographic archives and commemoration. This article considers two works from this series, titled Mother Refuge and Re Education Graduation, which examine motherhood and the nation-state of the United States as sites that (un)make refuge(es) and question the relationship between re-education camps in Vietnam and the US education system as sites of indoctrination respectively. Theorizing collage as an art practice that prompts a relational analysis of the different war events, I argue that by suturing together seemingly disparate histories, memories, places, and photographs, Le makes visible and invisible the gendered and racial violence that sustains US imperial projects.