After a short hiatus Eleanor is back and this week she spoke with Will Pham, a British Vietnamese artist and community organiser, about identity, migration, and the role of art in storytelling.
This episode reveals how identity is shaped across generations—and how art can bridge personal history with collective memory, especially within diasporic communities navigating change.
Will reflects on his parents’ migration stories, his early aspirations, and his eventual path into art as a means of exploring identity, belonging, and self-expression. Their conversation highlights how class, access to education, and cultural background shaped his choices.
Will is a London-based artist and community practitioner whose work focuses on British Vietnamese identity, storytelling, and collective memory. His practice blends art, activism, and participatory projects, exploring the Vietnamese refugee resettlement experience and intergenerational memory within diaspora communities.
Working in painting, moving image, text, and socially engaged art, he reuses and transforms family and community archives to reveal alternative narratives of survival and resilience.
Follow Will on Instagram here and visit his website http://www.willpham.co.uk/
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Apply to the Sisters of Frida Mentorship Programme
This two-year mentorship programme supports Disabled women and gender-diverse people who are engaged in, or beginning, organising and activism.
The programme combines collective learning, practical skills-building, and one-to-one mentorship, with a focus on disability justice.
Deadline 22nd June. Further information and apply here.
Event
Thursday 18 June, 6 pm - 9 pm | Building Co-Created Community Practices with Will Pham and Dr. Lili Ly
How can we embed ethical practice, and lead with care and co-creation in socially-engaged art? How can we talk to difficult histories, conversations, or topics and bring these into moments of reclamation?
Drawing from their combined backgrounds in visual mediums and psychology, Will Pham and Dr Lili Ly will be sharing more about the methodologies that have informed their collaborative process, and how personal narratives can contribute to collective change.
Book your the ticket here
As always you can keep up with my work and news here.
Please get in touch with me at eleanor.samanthaa@gmail.com if you think I should be highlighting your ESEA organisation on Between Nasi Goreng and Fried Rice.
