Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation (SCAF) presents Erasure, a newly commissioned work by Vietnamese artist Dinh Q. Lê – an interactive sculptural and video installation that draws on recent debates in Australia concerning refugees and asylum seekers. The darkened gallery space will be dominated by a floor-to-ceiling moving image of an 18th century tall ship beached on an isolated coastline slowly being consumed by flames. The gallery floor will be strewn with small islands of debris – discarded clothing and wooden fragments. Amid the destruction will be thousands of small black and white photographs – self-portraits, family and passport photos – which Dinh spent years buying in second-hand stores in the hope of finding his own family’s pictures. During the exhibition, visitors are encouraged to pick up these photographs which will be removed one by one, scanned, catalogued, stored and uploaded to a purpose built website (www.erasurearchive.net) for people to browse through this collection of oan hon (lost souls) and perhaps find their own families.

via Dinh Q. Lê: Erasure