Be Nice 2 Friends of Colour: A long time to get here.

Installation of photographs and drawings
A collaboration with my mother, Nang Voe Hom.

Be Nice 2 Friends of Colour is an attitude of treating myself and others that aims to facilitate self-realisation and pride. This project came about by reflecting on my lived experiences, as a gender queer Asian diaspora migrant. As a result of my environment and these facets of my identity, I have experienced intersectional discrimination that I had unfortunately assimilated with and accepted, which is an ongoing affliction to my mental wellbeing. Upon realising this, I knew that I had to take pride and confidence in myself, while also facilitating that attitude for others of marginalised identities that may have had similar experiences.

Be Nice 2 Friends of Colour is an ongoing project that has no strict physical expression. However, in this instance I have chosen to present it as an installation which revolves around photographs that prominently feature myself wearing clothes that I made with my mother Nang Voe Hom. In her youth her grandmother taught her how to make clothes,and in Mum’s early years of migration to Perth, she often created clothes for herself and my older sisters. In this project Mum and I collaboratively created clothes from second-hand materials. The clothes act as self-made uniforms of resilience, self-respect and expressivity, as well as a tribute to Mum’s creativity and our shared history. The photos, which incorporate a network of symbols, are intended to reflect a reclamation of our histories, leading towards self-realisation and healing.

As much as this is a personal project, I hope Be Nice 2 Friends of Colour inspires a sense of self-pride for People of Colour who have experienced the discrimination and struggle symptomatic of life within white settler colonialism.

This installation was exhibited in Seasons, Histories, Hopes: Imagined Migrant Futures, a group exhibition curated by Gabby Loo and Gok-Lim Finch, James Sykes Battye Creative Fellowship recipients.

Photographer: Tasha Faye