Ocean Vuong Brings a Lyrical Meditation on Loss and Living to CPW

Ocean Vuong is, quite simply, a magician with language. His ability to transport and transform readers is evident across his body of work, from the poetry collection Time Is a Mother to his award-winning novels On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous and The Emperor of Gladness. Born in Saigon and raised in Hartford, Connecticut, Vuong’s writing draws deeply on the experiences of the Vietnamese diaspora in the wake of the Vietnam War—rendered through imagery that is at once intimate and expansive.

That visual sensibility extends beyond the page. Vuong is also a photographer, and his first solo exhibition, Sống, is now on view at the Center for Photography at Woodstock (CPW), currently based in Kingston.

The title Sống translates from Vietnamese as “to live.” In English, it quietly echoes William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience. Both readings feel apt. The collection captures Vuong’s ongoing navigation of grief and growth with a tender, unguarded vulnerability. That the exhibition debuts in Kingston is no coincidence: Jacqueline Bates, photo editor for The New York Times Opinion and a longtime CPW workshop instructor, first invited Vuong to create a photographic essay for the publication. “She invited Ocean to do a photo essay for Times Opinion, which was published last year as My Brother’s Keeper,” said CPW curator Marina Chao. “That narrative—Ocean and his brother Nicky navigating the loss of their mother to cancer through a photographic collaboration—inspired the CPW exhibition.”

Photography is not a recent pursuit for Vuong. In fact, he began taking photographs before he considered himself a writer. For years, he kept those images private. In a digital tour accompanying the exhibition, he describes his photography as “a 15-year meditation.”

“I began as a photographer when I was 18,“ Vuong notes. “As I believe many young men do in skate culture and punk music. And what I found initially inside the frame was that when I left the event from which I took the photos, the frames turned into something else.”

Unlike writing—where language can be revised, shaped, and reconsidered—photography offers no such elasticity. The closing of the shutter, Vuong reflects, is “like a guillotine,“ severing the present from the past in a single, irrevocable moment. A photograph can reveal truths about a person or situation that were not visible, or even understood, at the time of capture.

The exhibition includes luminous images of Vuong’s mother at work as a manicurist, framed by fluorescent light and the pink interior of a nail salon. As a child, he spent countless hours there, observing women as they worked, rested, and quietly communed. He once envisioned a larger photographic series devoted to salon life, but the business closed before he could continue. In poignant contrast, a black-and-white portrait of his mother at home, taken shortly before her death at age 51, anchors the collection.

Her Vietnamese name was Lê Kim Hồng, which translates to “pink“ or “rose”; in the United States, she was known simply as Rose. Beneath one photograph, Vuong offers a spare, devastating line: “If I ever have a daughter, I’ll name her Rose.”

The Times Opinion photo essay that inspired the exhibition was titled My Brother’s Keeper. Following their mother’s death, Vuong became a surrogate parent to his younger brother, Nicky. The camera became both witness and companion. Vuong began documenting Nicky’s life in unscripted fragments—always keeping a camera within reach.

In one photograph, Nicky sits draped in an American flag, his head loosely bandaged, as if he had just returned from a long, invisible war. Their mother once wrapped his head tightly to soothe migraines. In another, he lies on a sun-warmed lawn; in yet another, he rests at the base of a playground slide, as if suspended between childhood and adulthood. One of the exhibition’s most arresting images, Nicky and Mom, shows him holding their mother’s ashes while wearing the traditional Vietnamese white mourning headband.

Elsewhere, Vuong juxtaposes a small Buddha beside a toy robot, a shrouded body on a Washington, D.C., street, and archival family photographs from Vietnam—visual contrasts that invite contemplation rather than explanation. The exhibition weaves together images from My Brother’s Keeper alongside earlier and more recent photographs, creating a layered meditation on memory, loss and continuity.

For Chao, CPW’s new 40,000-square-foot home—a former cigar factory—is an ideal setting for the show.

“We’re dedicated to the medium in a very integrated and hands-on way that gives artists a lot of direct support,“ Chao said. “Our scale and approachability, as a small team deeply passionate about photography, make CPW a perfect place to experiment and collaborate. It felt exactly in line with the phase Ocean is in with his photographic work right now.”

CPW has also produced a limited-edition artist’s book accompanying the exhibition, featuring 54 reproductions alongside Vuong’s reflections. Published by CPW and printed by 1080PRESS, the volume extends the visual narrative without replicating the exhibition exactly.

“The book is its own entity,“ Chao explained. “It doesn’t adhere strictly to the exhibition edit. Though the text is adapted from Ocean’s My Brother’s Keeper photo essay in The New York Times, the images include black-and-white photographs from 2009 to 2025, many of which have never been shown publicly. It’s an artist’s book in the truest sense—a limited edition of 250 signed and numbered copies.”

Sống is on view at the Center for Photography at Woodstock in Kingston through May 10.

NPR Interview with Ocean Vuong on Fresh Air (2025)

Photos courtesy of CPW + © Ocean Vuong 
FEATURED photo credit: “American brothers” (2024) © Ocean Vuong 

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