ABSTRACT
Studies of migration museums and exhibitions often emphasize personal and individual experiences, as well as collective experiences that represent attachment to familial groups and broader imagined communities. Migration, displacement, and belonging are represented via techniques that engage material cultures as evidence of embodied experiences of movement across places and borders. Laurence GouriEvidis observes: Ethnic and racial tensions or overt conflicts are recurrently capturing media headlines, as are the debates and legislation changes regarding the award of citizenship rights alongside measures passed at the national or international level to control and regulate immigration. GouriEvidis is concerned to explore the role of heritage as a 'discursive practice shaped by specific circumstances' with attention to the effect of heritage on place, experiences of belonging, and conceptions of national identity. Hoang made the model while he was waiting to be processed for entry to Australia, and later gifted it to Lachlan Kennedy, a member of the Australian Department of Immigration Indo-Chinese Refugee Taskforce.
