Establishing and Reinforcing
a Community of Emerging Artists in NYC
VI TUONG BUI
Vi Tuong Bui (she/her) is a queer photographer and filmmaker based in Brooklyn, New York. She is the daughter of former boat refugees from the American War in Vietnam / Vietnam War. Vi’s practice is in 16mm, and her work often explores memory; intergenerational trauma / healing; and Vietnamese and Asian American identity. She was a 2022-2023 Production Workshop Fellow at Third World Newsreel. During the summer of 2023 Vi was an artist in residence at Casa Do Xisto (Barcelos, Portugal).
Her films have screened at Visual Studies Workshop, Anthology Film Archives, New Orleans Film Festival, Beijing International Short Film Festival, The Museum of Modern Art among others. Vi teaches 16mm color filmmaking at Mono No Aware.
IG: @vi.tuong.bui | Website: vituongbui.com
16mm film to digital Color and sound 7 minutes
16mm film to digital Color and sound 7 minutes
16mm film to digital Color and sound 7 minutes
ARTIST STATEMENT:
Thời Thơ Ấu (Childhood) explores my understanding of my bố mẹ as people outside of their roles as my parents through looking at how they dream for their late parents and homeland as former refugees of the US War in Vietnam / Vietnam War. I collected their dreams, stories, and memories using 16mm and Vietnamese and in my childhood home in Annandale, Virginia and Queens, New York. Vietnamese is the mother tongue of my parents, but English is the language I know myself by. We spoke in Vietnamese for the making of this film, and I slowly translated their words to English.