Using extracted passages from Ocean Vuong’s 2019 novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, Le creates an ode to loss and struggle, to being a Vietnamese American growing up in the United States. The series Vernacular of Silence mirrors prose, poetry, and family snapshots capturing everyday life and subjects documenting overlooked aspects of social or photo history. Silence in language, untold and reiterated narratives unravel - and double back into the image through unreadable text. The text serves as a portal that bridges a sense of searching. The foliage acts as a rừng, a delusional jungle space.

I think I was drowning, archival print 22"x30", photo vinyl 35"x50" 2023

What we before we were we, archival print 22"x30", photo vinyl 35"x50" 2023

I can’t tell you why the dead outnumber the living, archival print 22"x30", photo vinyl 35"x50" 2023

Let no one mistake us for the fruit of violence, archival print 22"x30", photo vinyl 35"x50" 2023

There was a war, we came from its epicenter, archival print 22"x30", photo vinyl 35"x50" 2023