Nexus Arts, 10 Apr to 16 May 2025
Performance, video and installation artist Jazmine Deng’s newest exhibition, Hoa Huy, is a gallery-wide installation comprising a vast collection of objects which together constitute an eloquent and acutely sensitive biography. Created during the artist’s residency at Nexus Arts, the biography is of two people — the artist’s mother, Hoa Huy, and implicitly, Jazmine Deng herself.
Hoa Huy, installation view, photo Chris Reid
It’s biographical in that it tells of the artist’s mother’s experience of forced migration from Cambodia in her youth — of surviving oppression, becoming a refugee, adapting to a new culture and thus living in two cultures. And it’s autobiographical in that the lives of the artist and her mother are intertwined. It speaks of intergenerational trauma, of healing and of the artist’s own cultural retrieval and identity.
Every element of the installation is loaded with personal significance and establishes cultural identity and association. Deng describes this array of objects as:
“Joss paper, mum’s writing, family photos, tissue paper, bamboo, ramen noodles, oil paint on glass, ceramic spoons, mirrored tiles, sea shells, sand, tennis balls, mouse, hammer, beads, beaten up soccer ball, red fabric, string, plastic baskets, computer monitor, bike chain… and on and on.”
Hoa Huy, installation view, photo Lana Adams
There are cuttings from her mother’s essays concerning her migratory journey, entitled Mum’s autobiography, circa 1990, there is a collection of her Chinese father’s cigarette butts arranged on joss paper and sitting atop a stool, a bowl of small cuttings of photos of family members, a painted portrait of her mother (Mum in her land of dreams, 2025), non-representational paintings, a pair of black school shoes mounted either end of a bamboo pole, collages of family photos on joss paper (Remnants of the past, I know, I don’t, I know I don’t), and her mother’s lavishly-covered hand-written record of her experiences displayed in a museum vitrine.
Hoa Huy, Remnants of the past, I know, I don’t, I know I don’t, photo Lana Adams
There are videos, including a compilation of short sequences such as the artist singing, a relative (father?) performing karaoke in the loungeroom, another (sister?) at piano practice, the actor Jackie Chan (evidently a family favourite) being interviewed and two virtual reality characters engaged in conversation about reality (Jiu Tong Deng (past version)), and scenes showing the artist’s mother and relatives talking (Mum, 2025).
Hoa Huy, installation view, photo Lana Adams
Jazmine Deng muses on questions she had previously asked her mother, and her mother had asked herself: “Who am I/ why am I here/ what am I doing on this earth?” There seems an urgent need to answer. In her artist’s statement, Deng says:
“During the period of the residency I arranged to sit with my mum semi-regularly. My intention was to share with her the research and readings that I was doing around diasporic Asian women. It was an attempt to be together, collaborate, and share insights into mother and daughter epistemologies and co-knowledge creation…
“Within the gallery, there are traces of my mum’s life scattered throughout the space – photographs, her writing and moving sounds and footage. She speaks to me, in these whispers, and I pick them up gently to make up a story that I can recall.”
In articulating her mother’s story and her own story in material form, Deng has evidently prompted her mother’s self-reflection and personal growth. It seems that there is great love and respect between them. Cristea Nian Zhao’s thoughtful catalogue essay for the exhibition, entitled The Incomplete and Uncompleted Story, suggests there is also a closely shared sensibility between artist and writer.
In considering this profuse, finely nuanced and most compelling installation as an artwork, we viewers examine its form, read its elements for meaning and interpret it within the broad realm of artistic representation. Joss sticks and joss paper represent the honouring of cultural traditions. The videos and the autobiography in the vitrine represent the preservation of memorable experiences and identity. Glass sheets used as paint palettes represent the artist’s efforts to express ideas through art. Contextualised in the installation, each object carries much conceptual weight.
These objects also have great personal significance for the artist and her family, and so we feel like intruders overhearing a private conversation. These mementoes and talismans represent stories, personal interactions, steps in a journey, moments of reflection and transition points in people’s lives.
Hoa Huy, Remnants of the past, I know, I don’t, I know I don’t, photo Lana Adams
The installation itself is evolving during its exhibition season, as the artist moves and removes some elements. And it has an interactive element — Deng has provided materials like those on display with which viewers are invited to create their own collages, challenging us to activate these materials’ symbolic and artistic potential and to explore our own identity.
It takes courage to display publicly one’s persona and that of another and it takes great perceptiveness and visual and emotional intelligence to develop such a unique and individual visual language. Jazmine Deng balances artistic expression and inventiveness with carefully calibrated personal disclosure to convey the experience of diasporic Asian women and to honour her mother.
Chris Reid
When: 10 Apr to 16 May
Where: Nexus Arts
More Info: nexusarts.org.au
Hoa Huy, installation view,
photo Lana Adams
