Pao Houa Her: Paj qaum ntuj (Flowers of the Sky)

Pao Houa Her is known for her powerful photographs focusing on the Hmong diaspora in the United States and Laos, exploring themes of migration, displacement, and social and ecological resilience. Using a formally rigorous approach and working with both color and black-and-white photography, the artist draws from traditions of portraiture, landscape, and still life, critically and playfully engaging the boundaries between fiction and reality.

For her solo exhibition at the Walker, Her debutes a new body of work made during the past two years in Northern California. The exhibition title “Paj qaum ntuj” translates to “Flowers of the Sky” a Hmong phrase alluding to growing marijuana. The poetic and vivid quality of this saying demonstrates the artist’s interest in making visible how Hmong language and land often intertwine. Despite their successes in growing crops and forming vibrant communities in this harsh landscape, the artist points out that Hmong Americans in the Mount Shasta region have also experienced anti-Asian retaliation, criminal profiling, violent policing, and limited governmental protection during natural disasters. Counter to the media’s images of strife, Her’s work lends a poetic dignity and bodily reality to the on-the-ground experience and offers an intimate portrait of the community.