John Curtin Gallery Perth Festival Exhibition: Mai Nguyễn-Long Doba Nation

Mai Nguyễn-Long's large-scale installation Doba Nation features hand-formed clay sculptures that are arranged by the artist on site in a process akin to live storytelling.

Along with her distinctive Vomit Girl motif sculptures, Nguyễn-Long has created a series of cylindrical clay forms which derive their appearance from metal bomb shell casings (post-Vietnam War) that residents of rural Vietnam repurpose for practical and spiritual use.

In this new body of work, Nguyễn-Long's brushwork borrows from the southern Vietnamese folk religious motifs of her father’s birth-place, merged with personalised symbology. Doba Nation acts to reconcile the artist's personal experience of diasporic trauma and invites audiences to interrogate the history of their own identity.

This event is part of the Town of Victoria Park's 2025 Arts Season.

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