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<\/a><\/p>\nHuynh\u2019s exhibition \u201cLife in Many Worlds\u201d at the Fullerton College Art Gallery.<\/p>\n
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Fullerton College has one of the few community college art departments in the country that offers a prestigious Artist-in-Residence program. After talking with Seija Rohkea, Art Gallery Technician at Fullerton College, I learned that the gallery was welcoming Los Angeles-based multimedia artist and educator Phung Huynh to the campus this March to take part in the department\u2019s annual, four-day residency. Huynh brought with her graphite sticks, colored pencils, and oil paints, among many other materials, to share her artistic practice with a classroom full of students. She closed out her residency with an over-hour-long artist talk to the college community, followed by a gallery walkthrough of her solo exhibition. During the week, I had a chance to interview Rohkea about the history of the Fullerton College Artist-in-Residence Program, and\u00a0between classes,\u00a0Huynh\u00a0talked with me\u00a0about her experiences as a refugee, as an artist and as an educator. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Rohkea\u00a0said,\u00a0\u201cOur catalog mentions the beginning of the AiR program starting in 1972, with the community services sponsoring the first AiR program with Thiebaud.\u00a0The AiR program\u2019s beginnings, however,\u00a0stem back to 1965 with the help of Ferdinand Roten Gallery, which helped to conduct print sales on our campus. This annual event culminated in the Artist in Residence program just seven years later.\u201d<\/p>\n Some of the most notable artists to come out of\u00a0Fullerton College\u2019s\u00a0Artist Residency Program prior to Phung Huynh include Miriam Schapiro, Frank Romero, Pavel Acevedo, Chris Sickles, Lisa Congdon, April Bey, Gronk Nicandro,\u00a0and\u00a0Thomas Campbell.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cArtists are selected through a committee. Faculty members propose artists and the committee decides, then emails the artists for availability, starting with the first choice,\u201d said\u00a0Rohkea.\u00a0\u201cWe specifically look for national and international artists who represent a whole range of styles, themes and issues in their work and can teach their practice to our students for a week.\u201d<\/p>\n For the current artist in residence, Phung Huynh\u2019s exhibition, titled \u201cLife in Many Worlds,\u201d the space was used to explore Huynh\u2019s\u00a0cultural\u00a0experiences as a refugee.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe work is about\u00a0the refugee experience, it\u2019s about\u00a0displacement due to U.S. imperialism,\u201d said Huynh.\u00a0\u201cMy family and I spent eight months in a refugee camp in Thailand.\u00a0I\u2019m a multiethnic South East Asian with a cultural identity that\u2019s Cambodian, Chinese, and Vietnamese. My mother\u2019s parents left Southern China during the Japanese occupation of World War II and sought refuge in Vietnam, where my mother and I were both born.\u00a0<\/p>\n My father is Cambodian and left Cambodia because of civil war, genocide,\u00a0and\u2026brutal dictatorship; he bicycled to the border between Cambodia and Vietnam, and briefly remade a life in Vietnam. Within three years, my father met and married my mother, had me, and brought our immediate and extended families to the Thai refugee camp by pretending to be a fisherman and hiding forty-one family members under the boat stack. We eventually resettled in Michigan in December of 1978, and then moved to Los Angeles in 1981.\u201d<\/p>\n One art professor who attended the exhibit\u2019s opening said to me, \u201cI\u2019ve long admired Phung\u2019s work, so it\u2019s especially exciting to see it here and have the students experience it up close. Her work brings out a powerful way that merges the past and the present together. The ceremonial opening was such a thoughtful addition to the reception. It was welcoming and intentional.\u201d<\/p>\n Arriving\u00a0early on Monday morning\u00a0at the start of\u00a0Huynh\u2019s\u00a0residency, I walked upstairs in the historic 1000 Building of Fullerton College\u00a0and visited the drawing and painting classroom where\u00a0she\u00a0was\u00a0setting up\u00a0for the first class of the day.\u00a0From\u00a0day one\u00a0to day four of her residency,\u00a0Phung\u00a0posed an interesting question to the students,\u00a0asking them to contemplate\u00a0and considerwhat\u00a0kinds of\u00a0food they would\u00a0take with them if they suddenly found themselves displaced from their family and country of origin.\u00a0She encouraged each student to\u00a0either write about or\u00a0draw\u00a0thefood they would\u00a0carry with them\u00a0within\u00a0the\u00a02D\u00a0outlines\u00a0of\u00a0an\u00a0empty\u00a0container.<\/p>\n When asked how her teaching experience influences her art, Huynh said, \u201cTeaching has really influenced my work because it forces me to think about the future, and I feel like change takes many generations\u2026My grandfather has always said, \u2018When I think about what I do, I think about seven generations after me.\u2019 And so, thinking about the future, thinking about emerging artists, thinking about my role as a mom (\u2019cause they always call me their \u2018art mom\u2019) has built community. I feel like teaching has made me more of a community artist and seeing more of the\u00a0impact, rather than just making work and\u00a0showing it, but seeing direct relationships, direct connections\u2026It moves me so much that every part of this process has been with\u00a0the\u00a0students.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Huynh\u2019s exhibition, \u201cLife in Many Worlds,\u201d remains on view inside the Fullerton College Art Gallery, located in Room 1004 on the community college campus,\u00a0until March 25.\u00a0The Gallery is open Monday to Thursday from 10am to 12pm and 2pm to 4pm. Admission is always free\u00a0and open to the public.\u00a0To view\u00a0a\u00a0list of\u00a0exhibitions from\u00a0previous\u00a0artists in residence at Fullerton College, visit:\u00a0https:\/\/art.fullcoll.edu\/event_artistinresidence.php<\/a><\/p>\n Like this:<\/p>\n Like Loading…<\/p>\n<\/a>Jumping back in time to 1972,\u00a0when Fullerton College\u2019s Artist in Residence (AiR) program\u00a0began, I learned from\u00a0Rohkea\u00a0that\u00a0California-based\u00a0artist Wayne Thiebaud was the first to\u00a0launch\u00a0this\u00a0week-long\u00a0program, which soon became an annual tradition for the campus\u2019 Art Department.<\/p>\n<\/a>Rohkea\u00a0explained that this annual four-day residency includes a series of studio demonstrations, an evening slideshow lecture, and an exhibition of the artist\u2019s work\u00a0to be displayed\u00a0in\u00a0the\u00a0college\u2019s art\u00a0gallery for five weeks, with an opening reception that brings\u00a0the Fullerton\u00a0community together.<\/p>\n<\/a>Huynh\u2019s\u00a0exhibition\u00a0at the Fullerton College Art Gallery\u00a0includes oversized banners depicting decaying Khmer Buddha statues, among mixed media illustrations, paintings, screen prints and pieces made throughout Huynh\u2019s artistic journey. The gallery\u00a0hosted an\u00a0opening reception\u00a0for Huynh\u2019s exhibit on February 19, 2026\u00a0that\u00a0included\u00a0performances by a Long Beach\u00a0based Cambodian dance company, which according to\u00a0The Hornet, \u201cblessed the space with \u2018Rombam Jun Por,\u2019 a dance traditionally performed to welcome and bestow good fortune to guests, and \u2018Preah Thong and Neang Neak,\u2019 a dance depicting the mythical origin of Cambodia.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/a>Students pondered this\u00a0question\u00a0of displacement\u00a0and\u00a0borrowed\u00a0colored pencils from the front of the classroom to\u00a0start\u00a0drawing.\u00a0During\u00a0the\u00a0first week in March, students filled an entireclassroom\u00a0wall\u00a0of empty cans\u00a0with\u00a0colored pencil\u00a0and graphite\u00a0drawings, including: shu mai, coffee,\u00a0frijoles, mole, peaches,\u00a0pan dulce,\u00a0pozole,\u00a0tamales, collards and yams,\u00a0grapes, strawberries,\u00a0tacos,\u00a0and\u00a0musaf, among many\u00a0diverse food\u00a0offerings.\u00a0Different classes came through the room at different times, but each\u00a0student\u00a0left their own\u00a0unique\u00a0impression on the\u00a0corkboard wall with the label\u201cDisplaced\u201d on it.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n