Portland State University School of Art + Design student Lillyanne Pham has been awarded the 2023 Andries Deinum Prize for Visionaries and Provocateurs from the PSU College of the Arts. The prize comes with a $10,000 award, which will enable Pham to create “thương,” a cross-generational, multimedia storytelling project that will document the stories of Vietnamese Portlanders, highlighting and sharing the experiences and places that have played a crucial role for the Vietnamese community in the city.
Pham, who is pursuing aMaster of Fine Art in Contemporary Art Practice (Studio Practice), is the second daughter of a Vietnamese family who fled the country by boat in 1989. Their journey from Vietnam was anything but easy; in addition to a terrifying run-in with pirates, the family was split up along the way, with some going to a Thai refugee camp and others to an Australian refugee camp. When they finally received sponsorship to immigrate to the United States, Indiana became their new home. The family found themselves in a white, middle-class community that felt much safer than the country they had left behind, but also isolating in many ways.
Life was challenging for the family in their new town. In adjusting to American life while carrying the burden of trauma, her mother found it was easier to simply avoid talking about her past life in Vietnam. Like many children of refugees, Pham and her older sister grew up with little knowledge of her mom’s country of origin. Meanwhile, her mom was striving to create a safe and secure life for her daughters, but social and financial instability led Pham to set out on her own, sleeping in her car and on friends’ couches for a couple of years. One of her high school teachers saw through the tumult of her life and recognized her potential, recommending that she apply to Reed College in Portland, opening up a host of opportunities for the young student. After graduating from Reed, she interned with the Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon and spent a year with Americorps, working with the community in Parkrose, a historical Vietnamese neighborhood in Portland. From there, she went on to join the MFA program in the School of Art + Design at Portland State, merging her twin passions for community engagement and art. While at PSU, she has participated in and led numerous community creative projects focused on celebrating cultural history, digital technology and healing.
As a first-generation American child of an immigrant family, Pham longed to know more about her background and sought out Vietnamese influences in Portland. As she did so, she began to recognize the conflicted feelings held by many Vietnamese immigrants.
“I realized that talking with elders, and hearing their experiences, is how a lot of Vietnamese people in my generation get their information about their histories – they can’t find this stuff on the Internet.” Sometimes their own family elders aren’t even willing to talk about their backgrounds; they harbor painful memories of the war that they associate with their homeland and simply cannot bring themselves to share them.
“How do I learn my culture, and navigate through this conflict that my mom was also experiencing? I wondered. So I asked my long-time elder mentor whether I could archive him and his story, and he said yes. I scanned him there in the restaurant, creating a 3D model so you can feel what it’s like in this space, and I audio recorded some things he said about his life and his memories.”
For this project, Pham seeks to create a set of living archives, combining digital technology with her knack for bringing people together. The archives will be a resource for community elders who wish to tell their stories, and for young people who want to add their experiences and learn more about the hidden history of their culture. She plans to follow four families who have established themselves in Portland and have helped to build the foundation for Vietnamese culture in the city. Each person or family will suggest a space, object or individual for Pham to 3D scan using photogrammetry.
“I’ll make 3D models and connect them to audio, and people will be able to visit physical sites that have been important to the Vietnamese community in Portland,” she said. Places such as the grocery store Hong Phat, the Northeast Portland Community College campus, and a family-run Vietnamese restaurant that is now Doug Fir Lounge will be memorialized through Pham’s project. The project will include a printed booklet for those who don’t have easy Internet access, and a website containing the stories of community members and memories of important sites for the Vietnamese community, shared through augmented reality.
In addition to QR codes that can be scanned using a smartphone at the sites, “I also really want to bring a 2D component to sites where people can learn more about the history of that place. A brochure, for example, or a two-dimensional sculpture.”
Pham plans to work with the Vietnamese archive at Lewis and Clark College and the Oregon Historical Society archive. She will hire a translator and interpreter to help communicate with community members who aren’t as comfortable with English.
In recommending her for this prize, School of Art + Design faculty member Sarah Mirk commented, “Lillyanne is a singularly insightful, compassionate, curious, and dedicated artist … [she] is also a community builder at heart. … I am extremely confident that she will accomplish her project while staying rooted in her core values of collaboration, generosity, and care. Portland State is lucky to have Lillyanne as a member of our community.”
The title of the project, thương, means “I love you,” and is a way that older people express affection toward those from younger generations. “It’s a tender love where you’re willing to sacrifice yourself for the other person,” she said. For Pham, this project is an expression of that tender love for her community, for their suffering, their joys, their resilience and strength.
About the Andries Deinum Prize
Pham is the eighth recipient of the Andries Deinum Prize for Visionaries and Provocateurs, the largest cash award in the PSU College of the Arts. The prize is given annually to a student who is committed to expanding public dialogue via creative artistic expression, original research or an innovative project highlighting the role and value of art in the 21st century.
The prize is named for the late film educator and PSU professor Andries Deinum (1918-1995), who transformed Portland’s cultural and intellectual landscape through his innovative use of film in education. The prize was established with gifts from devoted former students, colleagues and others inspired by Deinum’s humanist values.
To make a gift or discuss options for supporting PSU arts faculty and programs, contact:
Jaymee Jacoby, Associate Vice President for Development
503-725-3396 | jacobyj@psuf.org
Make a gift to the Deinum Prize for Visionaries and Provocateurs.
2023 Andries Deinum Prize Jury
Subashini Ganesan, Commissioner, Oregon Arts Commission
Bill Hart, President, Hart Development LLC
Mario Milosevic ‘06, Vice President of Creative, Detroit Red Wings & Tigers
Gretchen Schauffler ‘85, CEO, Leading Chromatic Ventures and Color Transformations at Color Baggage LLC
Read Vietnamese translation of this article.