Creative

Dacchi Dang

Dacchi Dang (b. Saigon, Vietnam, 1966) is an artist who lives and works in Sydney. He is a founding artist member of 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art. Dang was born to a Chinese father and Vietnamese mother, and at the age of sixteen fled Vietnam with his brother and sister on a fishing boat. After a traumatic sea voyage the boat arrived on Malaysian shores where Dang was transported to the refugee camp of Pulau Bidong. Following nine months at the camp, he was transported to Kuala Lumpur where he was accepted as a Vietnamese refugee by Australia in late 1982.

Dacchi Dang works primarily with photography and printmaking, in various forms and processes, and also video and installation. His work has been exhibited in Australia and internationally since the early 1990s. Solo exhibitions include Full Circle (2009), Metro Arts Gallery, Brisbane; Liminal (2006-2008), Horsham Regional Art Gallery, Victoria; Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne; and 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, Sydney; Spectacle I (1996), Firstdraft Gallery, Sydney; Spectacle II, Stills Gallery, Sydney. Group exhibitions include DDESSIN [14] (2014), Paris Contemporary Drawing Fair, Atelier Richelieu; Crossing Boundaries (2014), Sydney Town Hall; Edge of Elsewhere (2010-2012), 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art and Campbelltown Arts Centre, Sydney; Planet Ueno (2008); Taito Community Museum, Tokyo; Re-StArt (2008), 733 Art Factory, Chengdu; and News From Islands (2007), Campbelltown Arts Centre, Sydney.

He graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (1991) and a Master of Arts (1996) from the College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales, Sydney; Graduate Diploma in Archives and Records Management (2000) and Graduate Certificate of Applied Science in Cultural Heritage Studies specialising in Photography (2003) from University of Canberra; and a Doctor of Philosophy (Fine Arts) from Queensland College of the Arts, Griffith University, Brisbane (2013). Dang has undertaken numerous artist in residence programs including at Bundanon Trust (2001), Hill End (2001); Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris (2003) and Tokyo University of the Arts Geidai (2008). His work is held in public and private collections in Australia, France, China and Hong Kong. Over 2015-2018 Dang is producing new works commissioned by the Australian War Memorial Gillespie Bequest that explore the wartime experience of Vietnamese–Australians and its legacy today.

Dacchi Dang

Photo by Jaquie Manning

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