If Not Here, Then Where? [Collective Series III ]

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Helen Tran’s work draws on traditional family ceremonies and funerary rituals and utilizes both print media and photography to express the idea of mourning and healing. “If Not Here, Then Where?” contextualizes how mourning rituals are constructed within Tran’s culture and identity using motifs of shrines, keepsakes, and ritual offerings. She brings these threads into the conversation by exploring the relationship through family gatherings of "Ngày Giỗ", a Vietnamese term for death anniversary. These practices of ancestral ceremonies have been an underlining emphasis throughout her life. Tran's material and aesthetic choices express notions of ephemerality and loss. Her current work is presented in a collective series of woodcut prints and cyanotypes. She combines the materiality of print, photography, and painting into a unified encaustic narrative.

This collection showcases the yearlong investigation of my exhibition work that focuses on the idea of mourning, funerary, and ancestry. Throughout the work, it depicts four encaustics (beeswax) collage painting that incorporates both printmaking and photography components. Its visual narrative acts as ritual performance, in sealing and preserving my traditions, and a worship emblem that sums up my work to pay homage to my culture and ancestral practice.

Where it's been: OCADU GradEx 106: Virtual Graduate Exhibition | Second Nature, group exhibition, Meaford, ON | Art Gallery of Mississauga