Rachel TonThat

Image: Portrait of Rachel TonThat

Rachel TonThat is an interdisciplinary artist and writer working with narrative structures around themes of possible futures, memory, and space-time. She is co-founder of the social art and publishing project, Oreades Press, and was a curator of the Zurich art space, Egg. In 2022, she was selected for the inaugural She Who Has No Master(s) writing mentorship through the Diasporic Vietnamese Artist Network and completed her MA Fine Art at Zurich University of the Arts. Her work has been supported by the ZHdK International Project Fund, the city of Zurich, Canton St. Gallen, the AAPI Commission of Massachusetts, New England Foundation For the Arts, Mass Cultural Council, and more. Her essays and art criticism have appeared in Intervenxions, Diacritics, and The Amp, and she is a contributing writer for Boston Art Review. She lives in Salem, MA.

Rachel’s quiet field trip to conduct her research on diasporic narratives in art ended with a pop-up presentation. The event allowed the space for them to articulate their years-long observations and critical thoughts on certain trends in diasporic art, often characterized by nostalgia, secondhand accounts from family members, and fernweh - a longing for a place (often a time and a place) for something one has never known. From there, they offered other possible approaches.

Images from Rachel’s presentation on Diasporic Narratives in Art