Giang Huong Nguyen
What I Remember
A photographic personal zine.
Photography helped me to blend in with the crowd without fear and it transferred my thoughts instead of words. This way I found my companion in the camera that was given to me by my father before studying abroad. “What I Remember” is a photographic project of an International student during COVID lockdown in Auckland, New Zealand.
In 2021, discovered my interest in narrative photography, I realised I enjoyed telling personal stories through photos. Also, it was a premise for me to be able to tell unique stories of other people that I could meet in my life's journey through photography.
On August 18, the NZ government once again announced that the whole country would return to lockdown after the emergence of a new COVID virus strain. The sudden return to quarantine affected people's lives and habits, especially international students who were living and studying in New Zealand.
What I Remember relied on my experiences during the quarantine— a Vietnamese international student living alone in an apartment in Auckland, New Zealand. My project specifically explored events and themes regarding mental health, isolation, a broken relationship, emptiness, recovery and the desire to discover my identity. Through these storytelling images, readers could find similarities, a self-reflection or self-growth in the pandemic.
