"One Whose Name Was Water"
Ellen Chang-Richardson
Ellen Chang-Richardson (she/her) is a Canadian poet, writer and editor of Taiwanese and Cambodian-Chinese descent. Winner of the 2019 Vallum Award for Poetry, her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Hart House Review, Cypress Press, Anti-Heroin Chic, and elsewhere. Ellen is the founder of Little Birds Poetry, the co-founder of Riverbed, and the author of Unlucky Fours (Anstruther Press, 2020).
“‘One Whose Name Was Water’ is an erasure of ‘IV. Here Lies One Whose Name Was Writ In Water’ from 9 Artists: Exhibition Catalogue by Bartholomew Ryan (Walker Art Center, 2013), a long-form essay that introduces Danh Vō and his intercontinental body of work. My initial inspiration for this piece was the full-scale exhibition Danh Vo: Take My Breath Away, on view at the Guggenheim Museum, New York, from February 9 to May 9, 2018.”