Phuong Ngo's 'Inheritance' at West Space explores migrant memory through deconstructed family furniture

Phuong Ngo's exhibition 'Inheritance' at West Space in Melbourne examines the complex notion of home for second-generation migrants through personal artifacts and reconstructed furniture. Born in Adelaide to parents who fled Vietnam in 1981, Ngo anchors the show around his first visit to his ancestral home in Mỹ Xuyên, Vietnam in 1996, when he was twelve. The exhibition features a deconstructed family table brought from Vietnam, its wooden base resting on its marble top, rendered non-functional as a metaphor for tracing the past. New tables crafted from wood salvaged during the 2016 demolition of the Mỹ Xuyên house appear unfinished, with their marble tops stacked separately; these are intended as gifts for the artist's nieces and nephews after the show. Video screens strapped to beams from the ancestral house show Ngo and his family using objects that traveled from Vietnam to Australia, including French-Indochina coins for medicinal cleansing and jade for ear piercing. Ephemera like bowls, coins, and photographs placed throughout the space evoke the intrigue of family history, including a 1996 photograph of the ancestral home tucked in a cupboard door. A curtain of mosquito netting dyed with pigments from the ancestral home's wood spans the windows, creating a protected atmosphere. The exhibition runs through 7 June 2025.