In a captivating performance at the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art’s (PICA) Time-Based Art Festival (TBA), artist Dao Strom explored themes of history, myth, and the diaspora through her work Tender Revolutions/Yellow Songs.
Strom, a Portland-based poet and multidisciplinary artist, drew inspiration from her own experiences as an immigrant from Vietnam, illuminating how painful histories often transform into myth.
Accompanied by fellow writers Barbara Tran and Hoa Nguyen, the performance began with a retelling of the Vietnamese creation myth, featuring the mountain goddess Âu Cơ.
These three artists formed part of the collective She Who Has No Master(s), which seeks to amplify the voices of Vietnamese womxn and nonbinary writers.
In their reimagining, Âu Cơ became a representation of diasporic longing, mirroring the cultural and emotional wounds carried by immigrants.
During the performance, Strom remarked that Vietnamese immigrants carry a
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