To My Celestial

Vietnamese ancestor veneration

Ancestor veneration is central to Vietnamese spiritual life, rooted in the belief that the afterlife resembles the world of the living. Lighting incense at the family altar was, for me, a way to affirm and practice my Vietnameseness, a source of connection with my ancestors. Yet since moving to the Netherlands, the family altar has receded into memory, and my identity ties to Vietnamese culture have slowly drifted as it began to take shape by the West.

My scared space

To My Celestial reclaims this sacred space by presenting a symbolic altar through which I seek an emotional reunion with my homeland, Huế. The installation reflects the belief that offerings and rituals in the living world are carried into the afterlife. In a liminal zone between the two worlds, I construct an altar decorated with traditional Vietnamese patterned paper, holding a green screen picture frame and offerings on top. Within the frame, my imagined afterlife appears as a live projection, Remembering Huế, a short film that follows a spirit journey in search of his homeland. As the visitors pass the altar, a small camera feeds them into the film projection, creating a metaphor that they’ve stepped into my celestial world.

Fugitive root

To My Celestial opens a passage between the foreign land and the sacred river of my hometown. The work speculates on new way to reconnect and engage with culture across distance, suggesting that traditions are not static but fugitive, they live on by migrating with us and evolve in the societies we inhabit.