Grieve Gaza | Original Artwork by Ly Nguyen
Available Dimensions (Shipping is included)
8x10 - $35 - $45
16x24, 24x36 - $80 - $90
Medium:
Fuji Pro Luster photo paper (Super Type PDN) for small print (8x11)
Premier Imaging Premium Photo Luster Paper for large print (16x24 and up)
A few words about the piece by the artist:
This painting is called Dể tang Gaza (funeral for Gaza), a painting of myself in the male áo dài wearing a white funeral headband, offering an incense to an altar in memorial of Gazans and all Palestinians who have been indiscriminately bombed, shot at, sniped, ran over, maimed, tortured, and starved to death. In Vietnamese funeral practice, only the immediate family wears white headbands, and the patriarch of the family chairs the entire funeral process. This self-portrait references a more masculine look I had when I was younger as a reminder of the strength and discipline I draw from the queer and Vietnamese nonbinary collective power and ethics. A majority of Vietnamese organizers who are supporting Palestinians I know are Vietnamese, queer, nonbinary, femmes, neurodivergent, and even disabled folks, including the very young in high school and people in their 30s like 1 am, and supporters of all ages well into their 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s. The genocidal war on Palestinian people shakes Vietnamese people as a collective, generations of us who have either directly or indirectly experience the effect of colonialism and war on our people and ancestral homeland, those forcibly displaced and disconnected from the land their ancestors build a life on. In this painting, I am the responsible son, the one who must bear the burden of grieving the murdered family members and must decide how to live and what to do after this moment of grief. Achille Mbembe wrote about ethics of the in-common, of imaginative solidarity amongst those who understand the designed brutalism directed towards the racialized poor of the world, and here I feel it, the righteous rage, the despair, the sobering awareness of what hollow, empty soul the Western world has, what absolute moral bankruptcy.
Glory to the martyred is a phrase that Palestinians say in regards to those fallen, regardless of how they die, and how young it is. Usually, martyrs (tử đạo) refer to those who die to protect their ideals, morals, beliefs, faith, either in resistance wars against oppressors that force them to live differently the lives they are supposed to live, or executed because of them practicing those. In Vietnamese, after the Vietnam War we refer to dead communist soldiers as martyrs, liệt sĩ, those who died in the war against US militarism and the armies they funded. But in Palestine, even a child who died of hunger or a sick person dying of an infection or an elder dying of exhaustion is a martyr. They are all persecuted for their existence as Palestinians which Zionism seeks to eradicate in order to falsify the naturalization of the zionist state. Glory to the martyred, because those who die an unjust death will see reparation in heaven; that's the Islamic belief, that despite the suffering it will not be all in vain, and that even if you are punished for being who you are, all the more reason for holding on and defend your life. This way, I grieve Palestinians, using all the knowledge and love and respect and familiarity I have in understanding how I relate to them. I grieve Palestinians deep in my heart, life family.
Available Dimensions (Shipping is included)
8x10 - $35 - $45
16x24, 24x36 - $80 - $90
Medium:
Fuji Pro Luster photo paper (Super Type PDN) for small print (8x11)
Premier Imaging Premium Photo Luster Paper for large print (16x24 and up)
A few words about the piece by the artist:
This painting is called Dể tang Gaza (funeral for Gaza), a painting of myself in the male áo dài wearing a white funeral headband, offering an incense to an altar in memorial of Gazans and all Palestinians who have been indiscriminately bombed, shot at, sniped, ran over, maimed, tortured, and starved to death. In Vietnamese funeral practice, only the immediate family wears white headbands, and the patriarch of the family chairs the entire funeral process. This self-portrait references a more masculine look I had when I was younger as a reminder of the strength and discipline I draw from the queer and Vietnamese nonbinary collective power and ethics. A majority of Vietnamese organizers who are supporting Palestinians I know are Vietnamese, queer, nonbinary, femmes, neurodivergent, and even disabled folks, including the very young in high school and people in their 30s like 1 am, and supporters of all ages well into their 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s. The genocidal war on Palestinian people shakes Vietnamese people as a collective, generations of us who have either directly or indirectly experience the effect of colonialism and war on our people and ancestral homeland, those forcibly displaced and disconnected from the land their ancestors build a life on. In this painting, I am the responsible son, the one who must bear the burden of grieving the murdered family members and must decide how to live and what to do after this moment of grief. Achille Mbembe wrote about ethics of the in-common, of imaginative solidarity amongst those who understand the designed brutalism directed towards the racialized poor of the world, and here I feel it, the righteous rage, the despair, the sobering awareness of what hollow, empty soul the Western world has, what absolute moral bankruptcy.
Glory to the martyred is a phrase that Palestinians say in regards to those fallen, regardless of how they die, and how young it is. Usually, martyrs (tử đạo) refer to those who die to protect their ideals, morals, beliefs, faith, either in resistance wars against oppressors that force them to live differently the lives they are supposed to live, or executed because of them practicing those. In Vietnamese, after the Vietnam War we refer to dead communist soldiers as martyrs, liệt sĩ, those who died in the war against US militarism and the armies they funded. But in Palestine, even a child who died of hunger or a sick person dying of an infection or an elder dying of exhaustion is a martyr. They are all persecuted for their existence as Palestinians which Zionism seeks to eradicate in order to falsify the naturalization of the zionist state. Glory to the martyred, because those who die an unjust death will see reparation in heaven; that's the Islamic belief, that despite the suffering it will not be all in vain, and that even if you are punished for being who you are, all the more reason for holding on and defend your life. This way, I grieve Palestinians, using all the knowledge and love and respect and familiarity I have in understanding how I relate to them. I grieve Palestinians deep in my heart, life family.
Available Dimensions (Shipping is included)
8x10 - $35 - $45
16x24, 24x36 - $80 - $90
Medium:
Fuji Pro Luster photo paper (Super Type PDN) for small print (8x11)
Premier Imaging Premium Photo Luster Paper for large print (16x24 and up)
A few words about the piece by the artist:
This painting is called Dể tang Gaza (funeral for Gaza), a painting of myself in the male áo dài wearing a white funeral headband, offering an incense to an altar in memorial of Gazans and all Palestinians who have been indiscriminately bombed, shot at, sniped, ran over, maimed, tortured, and starved to death. In Vietnamese funeral practice, only the immediate family wears white headbands, and the patriarch of the family chairs the entire funeral process. This self-portrait references a more masculine look I had when I was younger as a reminder of the strength and discipline I draw from the queer and Vietnamese nonbinary collective power and ethics. A majority of Vietnamese organizers who are supporting Palestinians I know are Vietnamese, queer, nonbinary, femmes, neurodivergent, and even disabled folks, including the very young in high school and people in their 30s like 1 am, and supporters of all ages well into their 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s. The genocidal war on Palestinian people shakes Vietnamese people as a collective, generations of us who have either directly or indirectly experience the effect of colonialism and war on our people and ancestral homeland, those forcibly displaced and disconnected from the land their ancestors build a life on. In this painting, I am the responsible son, the one who must bear the burden of grieving the murdered family members and must decide how to live and what to do after this moment of grief. Achille Mbembe wrote about ethics of the in-common, of imaginative solidarity amongst those who understand the designed brutalism directed towards the racialized poor of the world, and here I feel it, the righteous rage, the despair, the sobering awareness of what hollow, empty soul the Western world has, what absolute moral bankruptcy.
Glory to the martyred is a phrase that Palestinians say in regards to those fallen, regardless of how they die, and how young it is. Usually, martyrs (tử đạo) refer to those who die to protect their ideals, morals, beliefs, faith, either in resistance wars against oppressors that force them to live differently the lives they are supposed to live, or executed because of them practicing those. In Vietnamese, after the Vietnam War we refer to dead communist soldiers as martyrs, liệt sĩ, those who died in the war against US militarism and the armies they funded. But in Palestine, even a child who died of hunger or a sick person dying of an infection or an elder dying of exhaustion is a martyr. They are all persecuted for their existence as Palestinians which Zionism seeks to eradicate in order to falsify the naturalization of the zionist state. Glory to the martyred, because those who die an unjust death will see reparation in heaven; that's the Islamic belief, that despite the suffering it will not be all in vain, and that even if you are punished for being who you are, all the more reason for holding on and defend your life. This way, I grieve Palestinians, using all the knowledge and love and respect and familiarity I have in understanding how I relate to them. I grieve Palestinians deep in my heart, life family.