The cover of diaCRITICS 02 is by Antonius-Tín Bui and was specially created for this issue using joss paper, found & historical images, hand-cut paper, scanner, and acrylic panels. The piece is entitled, “Making my way home is the only ritual I know,” excerpted from Michelle Phương Hồ’s poem, “Bone Symphony.” Of the piece, Bui writes:
“The scanner, a machine built for documents, becomes an instrument of haunting. Historical images, joss paper, and light are layered into an offering where the archive loosens its grip on certainty, making room for ancestry, absence, and the long ritual of returning.”
Antonius-Tín Bui is a polydisciplinary artist and shapeshifter invested in the transformative potential of improvisation, portraiture, craft, and ritual. A monsoon in a past life, they see themself most in movement—in wind, in the shifting blues of the sky, in the quiet sway between presence and disappearance. The child of Paul and Van Bui, two Vietnamese refugees who carved futures from grief and grit, Antonius-Tín carries their legacy in every gesture. Their work honors the spectral, the tender, and the unruly, crafting portals for what cannot be named, only felt, only danced with ancestral shadow.
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