LOS ANGELES - Southern California has one of the largest Vietnamese communities in the country, but the community's relationship to the United States is complicated.

Thinh Nguyen is an interdisciplinary artist and teacher at Irvine Valley College. He’s one of 15 artists represented in a new exhibit at the Mistake Room.

To prepare for the show, Nguyen spent a year traveling the U.S. and sleeping in strangers’ homes.

“With this particular project, I use my body as a way to interact with other people,” said Nguyen. “The connection that I have with the people that take me in and using our time together to get to know each other and that connection to me is what performance art is.”

Born in Vietnam, Nguyen moved to Little Saigon in Westminster in the mid-90s after his father served in the U.S. Army. He decided to become an artist when he recognized a void of Vietnamese-American voices.

César García-Alvarez, curator of the Mistake Room, felt the same so he enlisted artists like Nguyen to fill the void. 

“Most of the time you encounter work by Vietnamese artists in museum exhibitions, it’s looked at or read through the lens of war and trauma,” said curator César García-Alvarez.

Which doesn’t tell the full spectrum of the Vietnamese experience. 

“You have artists that are exploring the way that media and technology sort of impact their practices. The way that official histories are questioned or challenged,” said García-Alvarez.

Back at Nguyen’s art studio, he’s working on a concept based on a particular racist encounter. While staying at a house, another guest, a self-described "Bernie supporter," told him to "go eat dog." 

“I spent a year traveling the United States trying to understand the American values and I realize I need to really understand and research what racism really means in the United States and how we as individuals, need to be honest with our own racism and how can we then dismantle that together,” said Nguyen.

To that end, he often uses found objects, such as a burnt American flag he found in an alleyway. He’s not sure what he’ll do with it. He prefers to think on it for up to a year before deciding what he’ll create. But whatever it is, Nguyen hopes his work can help inspire for a more diverse and beautiful America.

For information on Nguyen's show at the Mistake Room, click here.