KVT comments on the Long Bien photos

The installation of photos by Dominique de Miscault at MDA (Maison des Arts) is interesting. The black walls are covered in what at first seems to be a hodge podge of images of Long Bien Bridge, all put up in a higgledy pigglegy manner. Then as your eye begins to wander you realize the rhyme has a reason.

When you are crossing the bridge your eyes are assaulted by a huge number of images as you look through, beyond and along it…patterns, people, color, movement and this installation hints at this. When the bridge is used as a backdrop to landscapes or human activity it’s trickier to capture without the images becoming trite and post-cardy. The informality of Miscault’s photograph presentation without the confines of frames gives the viewer a sense of being a player in the life of the bridge.The obvious photo-shopped works were not terribly appealing to me and I had to think hard about the piece of cloth used in some and as a dominant hanging in the installation. I felt that the artificial changing of simple truth removed the artist from the burgeoning essence of the bridge. They were clever but unnecessary. To me the images that worked best showed small glimpses…a row of awning shaded dwellings, the man doing his morning exercises, the ploughman and buffalo.

Anyone attempting a new take on the bridge has to face the heap of work already done in the past couple of years as the Long Bien Project has chugged into gear. It’s hard not to duplicate images already successfully presented (hence I guess the photo-shopping ) but Miscault manages to mostly sidestep the good, bad and indifferent of previous Bridge performers and there is a whiff of fresh air blowing through a lot of hers.

There’s still a main prize out there though for a photographer to somehow get into the guts of the bridge and struggle through with something unique and arty, even if it has to be voyeuristic like most I’ve seen thus far. Unabashed 1st prize up till now goes to the three Danish documentary makers where each take was an eye catching still.