On January 15th 2022, I moved to Sunshine, an inner-western suburb of Melbourne, where I rented out a bedroom in Mrs. Hoang Anh’s home. Sunshine is known for its vibrant Vietnamese community, the best bang-for-buck Banh Mi in Melbourne, and based on the criminal activity here, nicknames like “Scumshine” or “Stabshine”.
More often than not, Vietnamese diasporas in Australia live under a state of loss. After the American War ended, millions of Vietnamese fled their country to America, Canada, or Australia most commonly through boats. Many of them never saw land again. With the influx of Vietnamese immigrants to Sunshine in the late 1970s, the suburb is now superimposed by the Vietnamese community to resemble a faux representation of their home nation, one they could not return to. Their lives on this foreign land that once aided in invading their homeland are re-lived through scenic photographs of Vietnam hung in dimly lit restaurants and burning incense as they pray to their ancestors for a better fortune.
Through browsing the local news, internet archives, and word-of-mouth, I discovered deconstructed stories without a beginning nor an end. Unlike its name, Sunshine slowly unravels its inter-generational tension of inner-community identity. I use photography not only to document Sunshine, but also confront my outsider status in Australia. I am constantly reminded that I am 7000 km away from my home in Vietnam, in a suburb that disguises itself as home.
Lê Nguyên Phuong (or Phuong Nguyen Le in Western naming convention) (b. 2002, Ha Noi) is an emerging Vietnamese photographer, artist, and researcher. His works focus on themes of collective identity, community, and family in the aftermath of the American War in Vietnam. In 2023, Phuong was the recipient of the Objectifs Documentary Awards (Singapore) and Tall Poppy Press Publishing Prize (Australia), resulted in a debut monograph and solo exhibition for his body of work Sunshine. Working across the Asia-Pacific region, Phuong has exhibited at Dà Lat Art Biennale 2024 and Studio 3nam (Viet Nam), Objectifs Centre for Photography and Film (Singapore), Indonesia Photo Fair (Jakarta), RABA Gallery (Japan), Museum of Australian Photography, PHOTO 2024 Biennale, and Centre for Contemporary Photography (Australia).