{"id":30617,"date":"2018-06-22T16:38:47","date_gmt":"2018-06-22T23:38:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dvan.org\/?p=30617"},"modified":"2018-10-15T12:51:24","modified_gmt":"2018-10-15T19:51:24","slug":"matt-huynh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dvan.org\/2018\/06\/matt-huynh\/","title":{"rendered":"Artist Matt Huynh: The Ark & The Boat"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Matt Huynh exhibition at Fairfield City Museum & Gallery<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Matt Huynh<\/a> is an artist based in New York City, and his extraordinary output and wide-ranging collaborations reflects a singular vision, inspired in part by his own family’s history. Huynh’s work encompasses what he describes as interrogating ‘war, diaspora, refugees, asylum seekers and migrant communities’, and it’s these parts of his practice that are highlighted in a current exhibition at\u00a0Fairfield City Museum & Gallery<\/a>\u00a0in Australia. Huynh’s core concerns also reflects the history of the Fairfield area, which has\u00a0the highest concentration of people with Vietnamese heritage<\/a>\u00a0in Australia. As someone who grew up in this part of south-west Sydney, he’s one of the area’s most notable and awarded artists.<\/p>\n

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The Ark and The Boat<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When you walk into the exhibition, you’ll see two large screens lit up with animations, both of which feature Huynh’s distinctive brushwork style using sumi-e ink. On the left is The Ark<\/a>, an animation depicting a refugee boat journey which is an adaptation of text by Viet Thanh Nguyen, the prologue of the sequel to\u00a0The Sympathizer<\/em>. On the right is Huynh’s celebrated work bringing to life The Boat<\/a>, based on the title short story of Nam Le’s collection of stories. The interactive graphic novel, which is available for free online, was commissioned by SBS<\/a> in 2015 in recognition of 40 years after the fall of Saigon and 40 years of Vietnamese resettlement in Australia.<\/p>\n

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Sketches from Ma<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Under glass are artefacts such as storyboards and sketchbooks and on the walls are various reproductions including a poster called HOPE, which I hadn’t come across before. I was particularly interested to see the sketchbook versions of Huynh’s comic book Ma<\/em>, which I\u2019ve read numerous times as an online comic<\/a>\u00a0on his website.\u00a0Ma<\/em> is\u00a0a moving and elegantly realised story set on Pulau Bidong, an imaginative retelling of the turbulent time in his family’s life before he was born. It’s a history that’s deeply familiar to thousands of us in the diaspora.<\/p>\n

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The Boat<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Huynh’s work continues to gain important recognition globally and it was affirming to see this exhibition of his work at the modest\u00a0Fairfield City Museum & Gallery<\/a>. It’s by no means an exhaustive retrospective of his work, with only a handful of his works on display, but nonetheless the exhibition accords prominence to an artist whose work not only continues to resonate in terms of our histories but articulates some of the key concerns of the world today.<\/p>\n