Dacchi Dang: An Omen Near and Far

Overview

This month, 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art hosts An Omen Near and Far, an exhibition of the work of Vietnamese-Australian artist Dacchi Dang. Curated by Pedro de Almeida, the show embraces three decades of Dang's photography, printmaking, video and installation, including a brand new work commissioned for the exhibition titled 'Et in Arcadia Ego' – a wax bamboo forest that will be set alight and melted in a series of performances.

Opening on June 9, An Omen Near and Far also presents historical material from the archives of both Dang and 4A, including documentation of the creation of his work 'The Boat' (2001), a significant and memorable artistic consideration of Australia's treatment of refugees.

Dang himself arrived in Australia as a refugee after fleeing war-torn Vietnam. His artistic practice is fed by an ongoing redefinition of what both place and home mean, and an ongoing attempt to articulate the complexity of diasporic experience. Through what he calls a "visually poetic language", Dang aims to preserve stories for present and future Australian Vietnamese generations.

Image: Dacchi Dang, Untitled (from the series Spectacle II), 1996.