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Film Screening and Exhibition Tour: “Bluff City Chinese”

and Artist Tour of "Tommy Kha, Other Things Uttered”

Join us at the Addison Gallery of American Art for a film screening of Bluff City Chinese and conversation with the film’s protagonist, Emerald Dunn, and artist Tommy Kha.

Following the conversation and audience Q&A, Kha will lead a tour of his solo exhibition Hayes Prize 2025: Tommy Kha, Other Things Uttered.

Bluff City Chinese follows two Chinese-American storytellers, filmmaker Thandi Cai and Delta elder Emerald Dunn, as they uncover the untold history of Chinese immigrants in Memphis, Tennessee. Through personal journeys, community oral histories, and archival research, the film weaves a 150-year tapestry of identity, belonging, and resilience. Set against a backdrop of social and racial tensions, this intergenerational collaboration celebrates the power of storytelling to preserve heritage, bridge divides, and inspire unity for future generations.

Currently on view at the Addison, the exhibition Hayes Prize 2025: Tommy Kha, Other Things Uttered examines how we construct belonging and otherness through photography. Born in Memphis’s Whitehaven neighborhood, Tommy Kha grew up as a queer child in an immigrant family whose multigenerational journey from China through Vietnam ultimately led to the American South. His work emerges from this complex intersection of identities and histories, expanding conventional notions of self-portraiture through his unique visual language. 

Please note this event takes place at the Addison Gallery of American Art, located on the campus of Phillips Academy.

Space is limited and registration is required. 

Image credit: Tommy Kha, Mine VII, Twentynine Palms, California, 2017. Archival pigment print. © Tommy Kha