Communal Fingerprint Painting of Obama
Donation protected
Please Help Me Travel All 50 States!
I need your support making an epic art project celebrating a monumental achievement in American history — the election of our first Black President! The protect consists of three interconnected parts. The first is a composite rendering of Barack Obama using the fingerprints of Americans from across our great land. The second is a compilation of video interviews from each contributor of their experience of Obama. The third is an interactive virtual reality program that connects the portrait’s fingerprints to the interviews.
I started doing this project in 2016 but it was driven from my past personal journey. My family were boat refugees from Vietnam in 1980, landing in America where I worked my way to a permanent resident and then citizen. I believed this county to be about inclusion and unity, to uplift the disenfranchised. I was the proudest when Obama won, because it demonstrated that America lived up to its promise that all are created equal. Many of us cried that day, I definitely was one! Following his departure from office in 2016, I felt compelled to document his legacy, to make a statement about unity in the face of the division that began tearing at America. I started to make an art installation where all of our fingerprints form a mosaic and our stories form a chorus of praises for tolerance in America through the portrait of Barack Obama.
I first approached DACA students who were attending a seminar on managing anxiety and depression with looming threat of DACA repeal. I wanted them to voice that they are as American as anyone else and they form the ideals for which Obama fought. Then I went to the tent cities and homeless people in the rivers of Southern California to give them a voice of inclusion on the portrait. I reached out to the young adults exiting the juvenile detention system, to share that their potential is limitless in the eyes of Obama’s America. I visited the Deep South in 2017 & 2018. Both Donzaleigh Abernathy (daughter of the late Reverend Ralph David Abernathy) and Dr. Bernice King (daughter of the late Reverend Martin Luther King) are on the painting, and helped to enlist other civil rights leaders’ support. Many politicians and celebrities have also participated. But it is my aim to see the portrait built from the imprints and stories of thousands of ordinary people like you and me that form the fabric of diversity in American culture.
I still have room for hundreds more to ‘imprint’ and to contribute their stories. In this epic portrait of an icon, we are all connected — from the homeless to billionaires, from the disenfranchised to the upper echelons of society. This multi-dimensional portrait will tell our stories through the face of our first African-American President.
Over the past two years this project had been my sole focus. When not traveling around the country and sleeping in my car, I develop the technology and contacts needed. I have worked and financed all of this on my own. Now as the project nears the finish line I need your assistance! Please help by making donation that you can afford. (All that contribute will be kept abreast of the project, and credited with their support.) Thank you!
In Hope and Sincerity!
Khoi Nguyen
I need your support making an epic art project celebrating a monumental achievement in American history — the election of our first Black President! The protect consists of three interconnected parts. The first is a composite rendering of Barack Obama using the fingerprints of Americans from across our great land. The second is a compilation of video interviews from each contributor of their experience of Obama. The third is an interactive virtual reality program that connects the portrait’s fingerprints to the interviews.
I started doing this project in 2016 but it was driven from my past personal journey. My family were boat refugees from Vietnam in 1980, landing in America where I worked my way to a permanent resident and then citizen. I believed this county to be about inclusion and unity, to uplift the disenfranchised. I was the proudest when Obama won, because it demonstrated that America lived up to its promise that all are created equal. Many of us cried that day, I definitely was one! Following his departure from office in 2016, I felt compelled to document his legacy, to make a statement about unity in the face of the division that began tearing at America. I started to make an art installation where all of our fingerprints form a mosaic and our stories form a chorus of praises for tolerance in America through the portrait of Barack Obama.
I first approached DACA students who were attending a seminar on managing anxiety and depression with looming threat of DACA repeal. I wanted them to voice that they are as American as anyone else and they form the ideals for which Obama fought. Then I went to the tent cities and homeless people in the rivers of Southern California to give them a voice of inclusion on the portrait. I reached out to the young adults exiting the juvenile detention system, to share that their potential is limitless in the eyes of Obama’s America. I visited the Deep South in 2017 & 2018. Both Donzaleigh Abernathy (daughter of the late Reverend Ralph David Abernathy) and Dr. Bernice King (daughter of the late Reverend Martin Luther King) are on the painting, and helped to enlist other civil rights leaders’ support. Many politicians and celebrities have also participated. But it is my aim to see the portrait built from the imprints and stories of thousands of ordinary people like you and me that form the fabric of diversity in American culture.
I still have room for hundreds more to ‘imprint’ and to contribute their stories. In this epic portrait of an icon, we are all connected — from the homeless to billionaires, from the disenfranchised to the upper echelons of society. This multi-dimensional portrait will tell our stories through the face of our first African-American President.
Over the past two years this project had been my sole focus. When not traveling around the country and sleeping in my car, I develop the technology and contacts needed. I have worked and financed all of this on my own. Now as the project nears the finish line I need your assistance! Please help by making donation that you can afford. (All that contribute will be kept abreast of the project, and credited with their support.) Thank you!
In Hope and Sincerity!
Khoi Nguyen
Organizer
Khoi Nguyen
Organizer
Santa Ana, CA
