Go behind-the-scenes as we install the Vomit Girl Project

Thu 5 Dec 2024

The Vomit Girl Project 2024 (illustrated) includes works from small objects that can be held in the palm of the hand to multi-part figures more than one metre tall created specifically for 'The 11th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art'. In keeping with the evolving nature of this body of work, Mai Nguyễn-Long has employed a new deep blue glaze for some figures, and increased her use of drawing and incising with the unusual yet precise tools of teeth and a porcupine quill. As a group, these at once fragile and robust works demonstrate the artist’s skill with clay

Nguyễn-Long’s experience of growing up in different countries, including Papua New Guinea and the Philippines, left her eager to discover more about Việt Nam — the country of her father’s birth. These biographical experiences are significant to understanding Nguyễn-Long’s practice, and particularly the character of Vomit Girl — who first emerged in the artist’s paintings and drawings as a visceral response to her experience of rejection. Vomit Girl (alternatively ‘Vigit’ or ‘Kôgábịnô’) signifies not only voicelessness, silencing and untranslatability, but also resistance and a means of healing and reconnection. As the artist explains: The recurring vomit motif came from a sense of being erased: having no identity, language, or voice to speak with. There is overwhelming sadness and confusion about how to bridge the dense chasm of exclusionary narratives, misunderstandings, discrimination, rejection, and shame.

Vomit Girl has a whimsical, playful side informed by concepts of mistranslation, wordplay and idiosyncratic readings of Vietnamese folklore. As a means of reclaiming her cultural heritage, Nguyễn‑Long also pursued her interest in Vietnamese folklore and her fascination with the little-known wooden đ.nh carvings that decorate local village halls.

Watch our installation time-lapse

Nguyễn-Long describes her Vomit Girl sculptures as ‘contemporary folkloric forms’. In the artist’s words, they emerge from the proposal that ‘contemporary art can draw from folkloric strategies to open up spaces for suppressed, hidden, and new stories to emerge beyond diasporic trauma’.

The sculptures are made from various types of clay, from dark smooth grog clay with manganese and iron to terracotta clay with cellulose fibres, white raku clay and, occasionally, a lurid orange glaze that refers to Agent Orange. Each object has its own complex symbolism and genealogy, employing shapes and references derived from local experiences and histories. The basis for the body of every Vomit Girl is the ‘Doba’ (Đ.nh Bombshell Bell Axis) form — a reference to a real bombshell repurposed as a village bell. The Worana (Worm-Dragon-Snake) is another important conceptual building block. Elephant fairies, toads, warrior cats, dancing birds, buffalo riders, mudskippers and screaming chickens are other captivating forms that emerge in the sculptures to create a refined, systematic and deeply engaging visual language.

Edited extract from the publication The 11th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, QAGOMA, 2024

Art that weaves a story
Asia Pacific Triennial
Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art
30 November 2024 – 27 April 2025