Webster Library Exhibitions

What Travels Through Us: The Memory Work of Cambodian, Laotian and Vietnamese Montrealers

September 12 – December 13, 2024

Webster Library LB-2 vitrines, wooden display cases, Audio Stairwell, Discovery Counter

The Super Boat People Collective is happy to present the exhibition born from the project "What Travels Through Us: Family History Workshops." From Fall 2023 to Spring 2024, the project brought together a cohort of fifteen participants of Cambodian, Laotian and Vietnamese descent, whose families were affected by war and exile. Organized in the form of sharing and creation circles, these workshops encouraged participants to delve into the layers of their family histories, often fragmented and intricate. In each session, guided by a documentarist or an artist of Asian descent who incorporated these experiences into their practice, participants explored a variety of mediums and approaches.

This community art exhibition is the imperfect culmination of the cohort’s reflections, sharing and work. For most of the participants, this is the first time that they have created such work, and for a general public. Artworks, everyday objects, crafts, interview extracts, personal notes, archives blend together within a setting that echoes domestic spaces, to evoke the character both familiar and strange of each person's family past. These are candid, magnificent and touching works, slowly thought out and shaped. They speak, among other things, of attachment, filiation, memory, silence, absence, gift, gratitude, departure and discovery. We also aimed to highlight the calming and restorative power of the group, along with the collaborative essence of the entire process.

The exhibition is co-curated by Rémy Chhem, Eva-Loan Ponton-Pham, Marie-Ève Samson, and the Super Boat People Collective and will be on display from September 12 until December 13, 2024 in the Webster Library vitrines.