Porcelain Medals

Vietnamese contemporary artist Bui Cong Khanh reflects critically on the aftermath of the American War (conversely known in America and the West as the Vietnam War) which ended in 1975. The departure of the opposing forces was hailed as a victory and national propaganda vindicated the communist government’s policies while glossing over the underlying brutality and social costs of the conflict on survivors.

Still a child at the end of the war, Khanh has few memories of the conflict itself but recalls the difficult years that followed it. Amidst the food shortages of the 1970’s and early 1980’s, when his family survived on just one bowl of rice a day, his own mother had often lamented that all his father’s army medals had no value because they could not be eaten. Merging this family experience with the larger historical narrative of post-war Vietnam, Porcelain Medals, 2018, is a critical contemplation of the real and symbolic values of state-issued medals and awards, as well as the underlying violence and aggression that these rewards are meant to reinforce and encourage within the nation’s armed forces.