Origins (aka T-shirts) was a video and photographic pieces in reaction to filling out forms and the answer to those seemingly simple questions were. Nationality: British. Ethnicity: Vietnamese. Place of Birth: Hong Kong. This piece explores the struggles I had (and sometimes still have) about my race & culture. I used 3 different coloured T-shirts as a representation of skin.
At the time of making this I was still strangling with my racial identity. While I was happy to tell people I was ethnically Vietnamese, I found it hard to feel “Vietnamese”. My nationality is British, but having grown up in Hong Kong then emigrating to the UK, I didn’t feel “British”. Having been born in Hong Kong but grown up in an ex-pat community, I felt I was isolated from Chinese culture and found it hard to call myself “Chinese” either.
