KVT – Lost and Found in Hanoi

KVT recommends a photographic exhibition and a book….about Hanoi

Here I go with an opinion piece that, hopefully, may raise some hackles a bit higher.

At present the visual art scene in Hanoi is overwhelmed with exhibitions of photography and it looks as though that’s not about to come to an end soon. There’s stuff at Goethe, L’Espace, Chula, Manzi…and soon at Module Seven…I’ve probably missed a few out!

With photography, the good, the bad and the downright ugly seem to think they are pretty excellent….sort of in the same league as my favorite Hanoi an exponent, Jamie Maxtone- Graham who, like my all time favorite, Bill Hensen, gives so many of his prints a Carrivagian aura and beauty.

This is an opinion piece about five photographers who have the right to think they are pretty excellent and they all feature in a new book of photography about Hanoi….LOST AND FOUND HANOI…that has recently been released and I confidently predict that it will rapidly surpass all other books that deal with the ever popular topic of life in Hanoi.

It was put together by an ex expat, Elizabeth Rush who spent a few years enjoying immersion into parts of an Hanoi an lifestyle and a job at Art Vietnam

Elizabeth got together some of Hanoi’s best resident, Viet Kieu and expat photographers and their resulting work can be seen in the soft cover book (for sale at a ridiculously low price of 450 000VND)

Ridiculously low because it’s an excellent compilation of images of modern Hanoi as seen through the eyes and lens of five photographers whose work you definitely can’t sneer at. In fact five photographers who are in the local upper echelons and some make their living producing commercial photographs that often verge on the arty.

A selection of their images from the book, framed and nicely curated, is on the walls at Goethe until the 16th of this month and is definitely worth a close look.

S’funny though…when you see the images in the book it’s easy to feel immersed in some of the facets that make Hanoi a vibrant city…if excessively noisy and far too polluted place that makes you fear for the physical and mental health of the children who have to grow up amidst its swirl and cacophony and fumes and lung coating dust. At Goethe, well selected photographs have been presented in simple black frames and this isolation into a fine art category effectively removes you, remotes you, from the real horror story that Hanoi has chosen to become at this stage in history- or that’s how I see it.

Like most of the represented photographers I also am enamored of and enmeshed in this dirty sprawling place where plastic bags and packaging form a glossy patina wherever you look (well not so much if you’re in the well heeled places where residents can live in blinkered fairy tale lands of denial or selective vision), and where waterways and water bodies are putrid, fetid (even though imbued with romantic myths of yore) but if I had kids I’d definitely be reconsidering my options about getting them out of the mess. Which unfortunately about 80% majority of the city’s residents can’t do.

But, I feel that most people who look at the exhibition and who buy the book…including that steadily growing minority, the Hanio-an middle class, really don’t want too much nitty gritty thrust under their noses in case they have to re-invent a mythology they can comfortably live with. And though many of the photographs almost allow us a glimpse into the poverty stricken underbelly that is very real Hanoi, and the environmental disaster heap that awaits around a near by corner, the viewer is naturally allowed the comfort of splendid remove.

Someday I’d like to see a photographic exhibition/book about Hanoi that is satirical, full of very unsubtle irony.

As is the case with photographic images of the city by people with good observational eyes, patinas and patterns effectively spread across the pages or on the walls.

These are interspersed with portraits of everyday life

And landscapes

My top pick is the work of Maika Elan who had a pretty sensational exhibition, Pink Choice, about gay and lesbian couples in Hanoi a couple of years ago at Goethe that was translated into a thin volume of prints that sells well to same couple travelers. Elan always carries me deep into her images that breathe an honest reality.

Fellow Hanoi-an, Nguyen The Son has reissued prints of aspects of Hanoi that are unique to specific periods in history These have previously been exhibited to critical acclaim. He imbues spaghetti tangles that wrap around concrete electricity poles with a romantic, fantasy allure. His recent images of modern karaoke parlors and dens and commercially signed streetscapes are wonderful.

Mathew Dakin’s works are full of hypnotic textures and patterns that we amateurs want to capture but never seem to be able to do so. If I could have one for a keepsake it would be of three blue plastic chairs on a patterned floor against a green wall rivered by water. His images are sophisticated and polished but sometimes, when he adds people to the patterns, his work is totally tuyet voi

Aaron Joel Santos has his images patinaed with people, fascinatingly so…or the residue of people recently departed the scene. Those of you addicted to the monthly WORD magazine will be familiar with Santos’ distinctive work.

Elizabeth Rush, prime mover of the project, is a freelance photographer and writer with a great thing going for her at Things Asian Press, including an oustanding kids book H IS FOR HANOI which is also now available and a steal at 300 000 VND….Adults will be tempted to purloin the delightful tale that is smothered in the irrepressible art of Nguyen Nghia Cuong..

Rush sums up her work in the book and her editing thus: Everything in Hanoi has texture-the scored construction sites, the slick plastic tables and chairs, the flower nurseries and tarpaulin strung up along Thuy Khue, even the air, which sticks to my teeth as I ride through the streets at dawn. Her images are redolent of her words.

If you haven’t visited the exhibition yet, I recommend it I didn’t get to see it earlier because I was too busy for 3 weeks motor biking most of the length of the Vietnamese coast line attempting to bypass Highway One (which we discovered is pretty easy to do even if you have to go up and down a mountain or two- give or take an hour or five)

I thoroughly recommend the book.

Read an interview with the author: Elizabeth Rush Talks about “Lost & Found Hanoi”

The book is available for purchase on the Hanoi Grapevine Shop.