In 2012, artist Pao Houa Her watched a group of Hmong men perform a military honors ceremony at her uncle’s funeral. She discovered they had taught themselves to play taps and fold the American flag by watching YouTube videos, buying their uniforms and gear online or at military surplus stores. Like Her’s uncle and father, these men had fought in the Secret War of the 1960s and early 1970s, when the CIA secretly recruited and trained Hmong people in Laos to combat Communist forces. Yet the U.S. government later denied them and their families benefits and official recognition.

As a tribute, Her photographed these veterans in the style of formal military portraits for her early series, Attention (2012–14). Today, these powerful portraits hang as larger-than-life banners in the atrium of the John Michael Kohler Arts Center (JMKAC) in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, as part of Pao Houa Her: The Imaginative Landscape—the first major survey of her work.

For over 20 years, Her has explored themes of longing, homeland, and artifice through her Hmong American perspective, blending influences from American landscape photography, colonial studio portraits, and Hmong vernacular photography. Her photographs, videos, and installations weave together California’s farmlands, Minnesota’s poppy fields, and the jungles of Laos, capturing deep sorrow, humor, resilience, and pride.

The exhibition, co-organized by JMKAC and the San José Museum of Art (SJMA), extends beyond gallery walls. Installations appear in public spaces and community gathering spots across Sheboygan, while in San José, wheat-pasted posters have appeared unexpectedly on boarded-up buildings and empty lots.

“We couldn’t showcase Pao’s work without highlighting what makes it special—it exists in the world, not just museums,” says JMKAC chief curator Jodi Throckmorton. “She introduces others to the Hmong community while showing Hmong people they’re represented.”

The Hmong migrated from China to Southeast Asia in the 18th century. After Laos fell to Communists in 1975, Hmong who had aided the U.S. faced persecution and fled to Thailand. Tens of thousands later resettled in America, where today they number 330,000—about 1% of the Asian American population.

Born in Laos in 1982, Her left as a child, spending a year in a Thai refugee camp before settling in St. Paul. Through her art, she explores a homeland she knows mostly through family stories, examining how nostalgia and fantasy meet the reality of displacement.

“Pao uniquely blends vernacular photography, high-art references, and technological innovation,” says SJMA co-director Lauren Schell Dickens. “She brings them together to ask questions and learn about her own community.”Here’s a rewritten version in fluent, natural English while preserving the original meaning:

She stands with one of her light boxes at the Hmong Mutual Assistance Association. As the first Hmong woman to graduate from Yale’s MFA program and now an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota, she tells Vogue that art remains an unfamiliar concept for many Hmong people. “We don’t even have a Hmong word for fine arts,” she explains from her Twin Cities studio. “Yet we practice art every day without realizing it.”

Her concern about making art accessible led her to display works outside traditional museums. “I never visited museums growing up—my parents still haven’t been to one,” she says. “When I finally went to art school and started visiting museums, I felt out of place because the art didn’t reflect my identity. That made me wonder: How can I say my work is for the Hmong community if it’s not shown in Hmong spaces?”

In Sheboygan—a lakeside city of 50,000—her images blend subtly into everyday locations. You might spot them on roadside signs, brewery walls, or inside busy restaurants. “I kind of took over the town,” she says with a smile. “There’s an unavoidable confrontation that happens. I love creating these accessible moments where people unexpectedly encounter art.”

Some installations make a bolder statement. The county courthouse features black-and-white portraits of Hmong elders against artificial foliage evoking Laos. “People must wonder what these portraits have to do with a courtroom,” she says. “I enjoy that confusion.” She notes one Hmong defendant later thanked the judge for the portraits.

The Hmong Mutual Assistance Association has served Sheboygan’s 5,000-strong Hmong community for 45 years. During a spring baby shower in their community room, her black-and-white floral print complements the festive decorations. Other works from her “My Mother’s Flowers” series create deeper connections—and some tension—by exploring floral symbolism in Hmong womanhood and challenging gender norms.

Staff member M Chang points to portraits of past (mostly male) association presidents, now joined by two of her female portraits: “We wanted to disrupt that male lineage,” Chang explains.

While her work has sparked some controversy—one displeased elder removed a piece—it continues to provoke important conversations in the community. A free calendar featuring her images, created with Union Asian Market for the exhibition, now hangs in the association’s offices.In the Hmong language, when someone says “It doesn’t look good” or “It’s not pretty,” it’s usually not about appearance,” Chang explains. “It means something is offensive or inappropriate.”

Overall, the Sheboygan community has responded positively to the show, according to Throckmorton. She’s been encouraged by the many yard signs featuring artwork from the exhibition that have appeared on local lawns—a quiet statement in this longtime swing state, where “Don’t Stop Praying” and “Make America Great Again” signs are also common. (Trump won Wisconsin in 2024 with the highest Republican vote share in 40 years.) “These signs show support for an immigrant community and the idea of refugees,” she says of the vibrant floral images. “They’re beautiful, so people might just like how they look. But I don’t think anyone would display something in their yard unless it meant something to them.”

Her’s artistic skill becomes even clearer in San José, where her works are displayed in a traditional museum setting. While the Wisconsin exhibition highlighted her connection with the Hmong community, the San José Museum of Art focuses on the constructed nature of her images. In these larger prints, details of artifice become visible: backdrops stand out more, seams and threads appear in artificial arrangements, dust coats a fake bamboo plant, and a rubber hose intrudes into an otherwise untouched landscape.

Works spanning Her’s career are on display together at the San José Museum of Art. Nearby, her images were wheat-pasted on a construction-site wall in downtown San José, while digital billboards at the convention center cycle through her photographs alongside event announcements—another unexpected encounter.

Both curators recognize that few will see both exhibitions, but Dickens notes that each location reveals a different aspect of Her’s layered work. As Throckmorton puts it, “The two projects capture her fully, reflecting the balance she maintains between her community and the art world. Pao’s work can’t be celebrated in just one way.”

“Pao Houa Her: The Imaginative Landscape” is on view at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center through August 31 and at the San José Museum of Art through February 22, 2026.