Fluid Memories

Carrying the foreign home

In Vietnamese culture, water and soil make up a country. “Đất” means soil, “Nước” means water — together, “Đất Nước” means ‘country’.

Solo military drills, socialist symbols, and physical metaphors are reinterpreted to consider how inherited ideology shapes the body and mind, and what remains when the body is carried across borders and into new places. Chung Nguyen explores how homeland, memory and identity come to be carried and collectively embodied.

Centring Vietnamese-Australian diasporic voices, Fluid Memories navigates the entanglements between personal and political histories of body and place through the lens of post-war Vietnam.

Situated at the intersection of dance, video installation, sound, and participatory practice, Fluid Memories invites audiences into an embodied encounter with migration, memory and belonging.

Lead Artist, Choreographer and Performer Chung Nguyen
Video James Nguyen, Chung Nguyen
Visual Artist & Masks James Nguyen
Sound Composer Carolyn Schofield (aka. Fia Fiell)
Participatory Engagement Advisor Gav Barbey
Dramaturg How Ngean Lim
Producer Anna McDermott
Lighting Designer Alex Nguyen
Red Scarf Social Studio
Production Manager/ Operator Kobe Donaldson