“Inheritance”
Phuong Ngo
12 Apr → 7 June 2025
Gallery
West Space is proud to present a major solo exhibition by Phuong Ngo.
Inheritance is a three-phase project that seeks to reframe the histories of colonialism, conflict and displacement through ancestral materials. In doing so the project aims to transform suffering and how we relate to it—to re-image what was lost and to gift it to future generations.
Presented at West Space, the first iteration of this project centres on Ngo’s family dining table, a place of gathering and punishment, and the deconstructed re-imaginings of familial and ancestral objects. An immersive installation, Inheritance includes the material remains of the artist’s ancestral home in Vietnam, archival materials, video, and performance. The exhibition seeks to deconstruct and reconfigure personal and geographical relationships to deepen connections with the past, present and future.
Curated by Amelia Winata, Inheritance connects South Vietnam, Tarntanya/Adelaide, Naarm/Melbourne and Kamberri/Canberra through post-colonial and familial relationships.
Phuong Ngo was awarded a significant $100,000 VACS Major Commissioning Projects grant from Creative Australia to realise Inheritance.
Phuong Ngo is an artist and curator living and working in Naarm/Melbourne. His practice is concerned with the interpretation of history, memory, and place as a form of comprehension for the present. Through an archival process rooted in a conceptual practice, he seeks to find linkages between culture, politics, public and private histories.