The Elephant's Trail.

Pursuit of identity.

I had the honor of participating in the Canon Student Program 2024, which selects 100 young photographers from around the world each year. I was fortunate to be mentored by Aline Deschamps, a Franco-Thai artist and resident of the Villa Médicis, whose work explores geopolitical issues, migration dynamics, and representation challenges through photography and video. With her guidance, I created my first photographic series, titled "The Elephant’s Trail."

I know little about Laos, my country of origin, but everything I have learned, I have discovered through the cuisine, documentaries, trinkets, and other decorations in my apartment, patiently waiting to tell their stories, sometimes evoking painful memories. “The Elephant’s Trail” is a photographic narrative that documents how my household was built after leaving everything behind to move to France, in Aulnay-sous-Bois, in the Paris suburbs. The exile took place during the Vietnam War, when Laos was the most bombed country in history, with at least 260 million bombs dropped by the United States.

Through the landscapes of my apartment, I highlight different aspects of acculturation, which is the cultural modification of an individual, group, or people by adapting to or borrowing traits from another culture. At the same time, I explore my identity as a child of the Laotian diaspora. This series is an ode to my culture and a way to represent households from Southeast Asian immigration.