Memory Study by Sarah Luu

Artist Statement:

“The diasporic is an act of will and memory.” -Bell Hooks, Art on My Mind: Visual Politics (1995)

Memory Study (2025-) is a series of ceramic works that try to make sense of family history learned in fragments. Sourced from my personal family archive, the portraits displayed are examples of how photographs can work together with evoked memories to form a collective narrative. Like many second generation Vietnamese Americans, I have limited resources to learn about my ancestry. In my family, memory plays an important role in preserving not only our culture and traditions, but also the generational stories of our bloodline and the practices that have sustained us through thick and thin. I lean on the matriarchs to inform my research, collecting as many stories from my mother and grandmother as I can. In doing so, I may be able to use my art practice to imagine a future for the Vietnamese diaspora that is unique to second generation Vietnamese Americans (and onward), severed from the intergenerational cycles of inherited traumas and sacrificial burdens of responsibility tied to the results of the American War. 

Artist Bio

SARAH NGỌC LƯU (she/they) is an interdisciplinary artist and writer. She gravitates towards photography, ceramics, zines, and printmaking in her studio practice.

As a second generation Asian American, her work has touched on themes of her mixed Vietnamese-Chinese identity, intergenerational cycles, culture and tradition. She explores outside those topics by pulling inspiration from her lived experience growing up in San Jose, CA surrounded by a vibrant arts and music culture. Her current research revolves around the experiences of the Vietnamese diaspora, focusing on post-colonial memory in domestic spaces, exploring how the microhistories that live within immigrant family archives and cooking rituals may bridge the gaps between elder immigrant generations and their American-born descendants.

She received a BA in Studio Art, Preparation for Teaching from San Jose State University in 2024 and is currently studying for an MFA in the Art and Social Practice program at Portland State University.

Her favorite food is her grandmother’s Bánh Bao and she can roller-skate backwards. She knows how to speak 5 languages and considers herself a professional in egg-frying of all forms.