ISTD: 036

  • Vivian Vong
For this years ISTD project, I had chosen the Anniversaries brief. Currently the eyes of the world are focused on the Middle East and the hundreds of thousands of Syrians who are fleeing their homes because of civil war. But nearly 40 years ago, it was a different refugee crisis that was dominating the headlines. Those at the centre of it became known as The Vietnamese Boat People. Crammed into small fishing boats, they risked their lives to escape their home country and in these publications, I dedicate this to my family and family friends who were on boat THK 036. DRIFT contains a series of photographs of the boat 036 and to go along with the photos, I have included a poem by Brian Bilston. Read top-to-bottom as normal, his piece says refugees "are not welcome here", calls on them to "go back to where they came from" and says "a place should only belong to those who are born there". But the poet adds a small request at the end of his poem: "Now read from bottom-to-top". And the results are really something else... FIXED on the other hand, focuses on the refugees storys and their resettlement in the UK.