Drunken Swine (2019)

Drunken Swine is an exhibition that combines photographic and ceramic installation to unpack the relationship that the South Vietnamese community has with their colonial history. The work takes reference points from 19th and early 20th century ethnographic photography to examine the history of orientalist tropes that informed the French colonial image making process, and combines it with an exploration of displaced French culture exampled by the popularity of cognac within the global Vietnamese diaspora. 

Drunken Swine utilises vernacular cultures, literature, language, and history to critique colonial lay overs and the ongoing elitism that is still attached to the way in which French occupation is perceived within the Vietnamese diaspora. Through this exhibition Slippage aims to offer a point of difference to our communities, nudging our individual and collective identities towards a de-colonial framework. 

Slippage acknowledges and pays respect to the Gadigal people of the Eora nation, the traditional custodians of the land on which Firstdraft is built and operates, and where this exhibition is taking place. We also acknowledge and pay our respects to the people of the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung language groups of the eastern Kulin Nations on whose unceded lands this work was made. 

Drunken Swine was funded by the Australian Government through the Australian Council for the Arts. 

Image credit: Zan Wimberley