“Towards the Same Horizon” consists of 21 archival images from post-war Vietnam printed on Pictorico film and hand-constructed together in a timeline format. All photos follow the same horizon line and/or analogous points of connection. From left to right, the timeline begins with images from the Fall of Saigon and ends with documentation of Vietnamese refugees’ camp life (among which a personal family photograph is included). The archival images are juxtaposed according to how they push/pull into each other (e.g. bodies of people moving toward and overlapping into the next image). Installed mid-air and suspended from the ceiling, “Towards the Same Horizon” exists as a sculptural object that transforms the space around it depending on viewers’ orbits and distance.

During the initial installation, the audience was encouraged to interact with the artwork using their phone flashlights, causing images to expand and shrink on the wall behind. When flashlights met the back of the artwork, they formed ripples of light (similar to water). Past the border of every image incorporated into this piece, an entire world existed out of frame…not forgotten, but simply unseen.

Contrary to the title and visual flow of this piece, Vietnamese refugees immigrated toward different horizons (and in many directions) depending on their given circumstances. But, the ideology of “moving towards the same horizon” is rooted in a shared rhetoric amongst many refugees: that a better future existed on that horizon regardless of direction, separated by land/water from the pain and poverty in post-war Vietnam.