Engaging The Past Perhaps due to the misconception that photography is always objective, contemporary artists have found

the medium particularly useful in reinterpreting and documenting obscured voices. Indian photographer

Pushpamala N's Native Women of South India- Manners and Customs (2000-2004) is an example that

quickly comes to mind. Collaborating with British photographer Clare Arni, Pushpamala reenacts the

19th-century zenanas-all women studios run by British female photographers in cities such as Hyderabad

and Kolkata where Indian women would be pictured with painted sets-in a series of photographic

performances exploring the history of photography as an ethnographic tool. While the British had used

photography to fix native women as types, according to Pushpamala, the Indians have used the medium

to create a national identity.

Another example is Indonesian photographer Ng Swan Ti's Catholicism in Indonesia (2000-2005).

While it was pursued as a personal project to learn about her faith, Ng's work serves as a window into

the minority religion within the context of the world's most populous Muslim country. One can only hope

that more Indonesians will see her work and hopefully participate in the ensuing dialogue, thereby laying

the foundations for long-term religious harmony.

Given the catastrophic fallout of the Vietnam War, it is tempting to assume that Vietnamese

p~otographers should have already dealt with the tragedy as a subject over the vears,_However, this is not

the case. The reasons are not too profound. After the war, most photographers were more preoccupied in

rebuilding their lives rather than getting involved in art. At the same time, many of them are members

of the Vietnamese Association of Photographic Artists (VAPA), which is linked to the government. Certain

suJ1_ects are natural!Jlfrowned upon.

As early as 1989, while he was still studying for his BFA at the University of California at Santa

Barbara, Vietnamese artist Dinh Q. Le was already confronting his memories of the war through his work.

Dinh Q . Le, Untitled (from Vietnam to Hollywood series), 2003- 2005, photo-weaving. All photographs: Courtesy of the Artist.

60 ASIAN ART NEWS NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2006

Dinh Q . U !, Untitled (from Vietnam to Hollywood series), 2003-2005, photo-weaving.

Amongst the first wave of Vietnamese migrants who studied art in the West and have since returned to the

country, Le is best known for his "photo-weavings," a selection of which were featured at the 50th Venice

Bienn!le. The method that he uses is derived from his aunt's mat-weaving technique. By physically weaving

together strips cut f : om found images, !:_e's act is a symbolic one in his w r:..rk; to include rather than to

exclude a multitude o[perspective!!_ especially those that have been marginalized by the mainstream. His

interest does not end with the Vietnam War. Born in 1968, at Ha-Tien, a South Vietnamese village not far

from the Cambodian borg er, Le and his family survived the Vietnam War but fled to Los Angeles in 1979

because of the invasion of the Khmer Rouge. In Cambodia: Splendor and Darkness (1996-1998), images

of Angkor and the victims of Tuol Sleng-the Khmer Rouge's infamous prison-are- woven together in an

attempt to cast a redeeming light on a country that is still plagued by poverty.

Apart from photo-weavings, Le, who also did his Master's in photography and related media at New

York's School of Visual Arts (1990-1992), makes installations and video works, which can be seen as.Jan

extension of his interest m weavmg perspectives. Mot Coi DiVe (1998), which translates as "spending one's

life trying to find one's way home," is an excellent example. Made into a quilt from 1,500 old photos of -Vietnam, Le inscribed on the back of them lines from Vietnam's 19th-century epic poem The Tale of Kieu,

letters §!!!1.Lhomgjrom sol£:li!!!:s during the war, and interviews with Vietnamese-Americans dl).;;;;j their .......a .....--........ ....

memori!!§_ of Vietnam, and their lives as migrants based onjames Freeman's Hearts of Sorrow: Vietnamese-

American Lives. According to Rebecca Mcdreurtn an essay introducing Le's wo;:k, the her~~ Tale

of Kieu came 'from a good family, who had to turn to prostitution but was eventually redeemed. Due

to tragic events, she was forced to leave her home and country. . . and subjected to terrible ordeals and

suffering. Eventually, she was able to return to her homeland and be reunited with her family ... Kieu

stands for Vietnam itself, a land well endowed with natural and human resources, but often doomed to

see such riches go to waste or be destroyed. Particularly, during and after the Vietnam War, many people

identified with Kieu."

Singapore-based Asian Art News correspondent Zhuang Wubin spoke with Dinh Q. Le about the

motivations behind his various projects and how his personal history has shaped his art. Dinh Q. Le now

divides his time between Ho Chi Minh City and Los Angeles.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2006 ASIAN ART NEWS 61

Dinh Q. Ui, Untitled (from Portraying a White God series), 1989-1993, photo-weaving.

Zhuang Wubin:Magnum photographer PhilipJones Gri.ffiths has just published Vietnam at Peace, a mammoth book about the country after the Vietnam War. Although he made his name covering the War, the book indicates a commitment to documenting Vietnam's recovery over the past 20 years. In a way, this book is conceived in the same spirit as most of your conceptual work on Vietnam. What do you feel about his photographs of Vietnam?

D~ Q. U!: I cannot claim to be an expert on Philip ]ones Griffiths' work. But I know that his images from the War were very well published around ilie world. Images from this book have been comparatively less widely seen. The probability of iliese images making onto the front page of the New York Times must be lower than that of his images of the War. The world is no longer interested. It seems ~_!hough the readers and the press only wanted the nmst violent and shocking rffi~es of the war. But we

h ad a life back then, even dUrina th Vietnam War. T ·s · 1all the starting point for Mat Coi Di Ve.

How has Mot Coi Di Ve helped you in finding your way home to Vietnam?

We couldn't take much with us when we fled Vietnam. Apart from the Khme r Rouge's invasion, we left because Vietnam was quite repressive then. When I returned, I went in searcii'Qf my family photos in second­

photos but I started collecting those d1at I _saw. They were SJm!lar, but not exW ly mine. Because I didn't want to limit d1e project w1th my personal perspective I started buying the images by the ~)o I bought about four to five kilograms_of photos for the project, from which j(OU

will see that there were happy days eY§1 during the war.

Whe n I re turned to Vietnam for the first time in 1993, I was already fairly

-._

assimilated into American life . I went to the faJ.11ilY grave and felt d1e first sense of connect;i.on with the country. There were five generations of my famil buried I~e In d1e States, I had always been drifting. I made up my mind by 1996 to move back.

Apart from the fixation on gory images, what do you think is problematic with our perspective on the Vietnam War?

The West has largely informed our view of the War. We hardly encounter vjews frorn Asians, let alone the Vietnamese. What do we know about the 'civilian point of view? In my work, I'm guided by the desire to present my version of the war to the world.

hand stor.es. I cl jdp't fi.tl~Dinh Q . Le, Untitled (from Portraying a White God series), 1989-1993, photo-weaving. --

Living in America as a minority, race is always a major issue. It feels as though we always have to define our relationship w1ili. the whites. In school, I sti1diea a1t, which is unusual. T~~ first wave ~e.fugees anc migrants were nQ!J11ally concerned w ith maki ng money, Children we1:s:_sent to engineering scJ:..gols, pa rtly due to their li.!],ited command of English. As lives becam> ~or~ stable, we had more freedom to explor~ . other disciplines in school, not only in art, but a lso in history and literature. This will lead to a proliferation of perspectives in Vietnam, which can only be good. Some of these young people are returning to their parents' homeland. In ilie process, iliey will have to reaffirm their concept of Vietnam, which tends to be larger-than-life, since it has bee n feel by Hollywood.

62 ASIAN ART NEWS NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2006

These are exciting times in Vie tnam.

Photo-weaving was first used in Portraying a White God (1989-1993). What were you trying to address with that work?

I was 11 whe n I arrived in America . I couldn't speak English and didn't have any friends . When I was do ing my seventh or eighth grade, I would spend my time in the libraty looking at art books. For one reason or another, all the books w ere about Renaissance Art. At UC S n Barbara, I was an Asian s t Western art histo ry witho ut knowing anything about my own histo ty . Made during my senio r year, Portray ing a Wh ite God w as a n attempt to weave my self-portraits into the Renaissance paintings, w hich represent an identity and culture that is not mine . I was trying to pro~ce a tapestiy where L was also included . --How does the technique of photo­weaving work? Are the pauerns used in traditional mat weaving symbolic in Vietnam?

The panerns used in mat-weaving are preny standard. They are no t symbolic because the mats o ften meant fo r eve For example, to husks . Althoug~d fromm a t -w eaving, m y photo -w eaving technique is quite different. Weaving two o r more photographs togethe r, certa in parts are left unwoven so that tTie images w ill come through more vividly . If I want to hav~mages merging into e-ac h o th e r , m at particula r a rea w ill h ave tob~It's quite s imple . I have always been quite good in math . In fact, I was supposed to do compute r science instead of art. Weaving is perhaps one of the ~ary structures in existence. In a way';computer ~ence and weaving are quite similar.

At around the same time as Portraying a White God, you did a series of political posters quantifying the suffering of Americ a and Vietnam during the War. In hindsight, are you surprised that you could make something so

Dinh Q. Ui, The Quality of Mercy (detail), 1995, installation.

to the photo-weavings, which tend to be subtler?

With the poste rs , I had to convey the message very quickly. But to make them , I also needed to see the War from America's pe rspective. It required an understanding of the issue from both sides of the equation . At that time, I w as taking a course titled "A

the Vie tnam WaP"' ~~~~~~~~

Inevitably, it pe rpe tuated the American po int of view. I became frustrated. Their suffe ring during the War is incomparable to that o f the Vie tnamese p eople . Stop whining, I th o ug h t.---r-rooke d up the number of casualties and the difference between the Vietnamese and the Americans is vast: som ething in the scale o f two million as compared to 60 ,000. Usin~he information, I made a series of photocopied

p osters and p osted them all o ve r campus. Interestingly, I have n o t kept a set o f these posters but some of my teach e rs fo und the m meaningful enough to take the m off the walls and kept the m.

Your first trip to Cambodia in 1994 led to a series of projects about the country, including the installations The Quality of Mercy (1995) and Cambodia: Splendor and Darkness. Why did the trip leave such an impact on you?

reactionary, as compared Dinh Q. Ui, The Quality of Mercy, 1995, installation view.

Growing up in Ha-Tie n , Cambodia was never too far away. Be fo re 1975, there was already a lo t of trade betwcrn Vietn;;:;:;a'nd Cambodia. Afte r 1975, a lot mo re Cambodians came to Ha:'f'ien . The bo rde r ~as g uite poro us . The re was ~cl fi)L' p aSSJ2Ql;tS tO

cross the borde r. In fact, my cousins were bo rn in Ca m bod ia . T h e y s p o ke Cambo d ian and ye ry bad Vie tna m ese . In 1976 or

NOVEMBER/ DECEMBER 2006 ASIAN ART NEWS 6 3

1977, they escaped to Vietnam with my aunt and told us all the horror stories of the Khmer Rouge. I went to Cambodia in 1994 to learn more about the countly that affected my life.

My first stop then was U!ol Sleng, where I saw manr_ Western~. Many of them were on honeymoon, visiting the museum before going to Angkor. They had come with a morbid fascination and that bothered me. "When the Khmer Rouge w~ca nying_out the genocide, the world k~ but didn't do al}.Yth mg about it. As a result, more than two million people were killed. Housed in a space that resembled a torture chamber, Tbe Qualitj}'Q[Mercy inc~ted images of the victims' e~. Tl~u· eyes showed that they didn't know

by they were brought to Tuol Sleng. They were the scapegoats of the Khmer Rouge's failed policies.

" Cambodia: Splendor and Darkness was driven by the conflicting thought that a culture capable of such beautiful monuments as the Angkor Wat could a lso murder two million of her own people . I think we have the tendency of building mo numents-which celebrate the reigns of kings-rather than memorials, which commemorate victims.

How was your installation The Headless Buddha (1997), which is also about Angkor, a metaphor of your decision to move back to Vietnam?

There are a lot of headless statues at Angkor. Initially, I thought it was the handiwork of the Khmer Rouge. Later, I realized it was the looters who cut the heads and sold them in Thailand. When the heads of the Buddha reached America or Europe, they became exotic art objects, whi le Cambodians, rather surprisingly, continued praying to these headless Buddhas. We usually assume that an object loses its significance when its head is removed, but this is not the case at Angkor. Nonetheless, it was interesting for me to see how different cultures deal with the same object when split into two.

When I came back to Vietnam, I was searching for my former self. Similarly, in Tbe Headless Buddha, the head is also looking for its former self in the form of its headless body. Nowadays, when I see my cousin who didn 't escape to America , I often wonder if I would have been like him if I had stayed in Vietnam. We are around the same age. He is now working as an accountant for two companies. Tbe

Headless Buddha is about the sense of displacement.

It must have been an interesting experience in housing an installation project like Damaged Gene (1998) in a market of Ho Chi Minh City. Apart from the Siamese-twin figurines, you made clothes for these children and T-shirts quantifying thefaUout of Agent Orange in Vietnam and the companies-like Dow Chemical and Monsanto-that produced it. How did people react to the work? Did the installation alarm the authorities?

At that time, many people with deformities were begging on the streets. In recent years, the number has decreased since the government started taking care of them. In 1998, nobody would talk about it. The American government didn't want to remind the world that they had used Agent Orange during the War. The Vietnamese government didn't want to face the issue because by then Vietnam was a lready the third largest exporter of rice in the world and perhaps the third or fourth largest exporter of coffee. Bringing up the issue would affect the country 's agricultural

Dinh Q. Le, Untitled (from Cambodia: Splendor and Darkness series) , DinhQ. Le,Untitled (fromCambodia:Sp/endorandOarknessseries), 1996-1998, 1996-1998, photo-weaving . photo-weaving.

64 ASIAN ART NEWS NOVEMBER/ DECEMBER 2006

exports . Moreover, the urban myth was that by talking about it, you would have deformities.

During the War, Agent Orange was used to defoliate Vietnam. A pinhead of it is enough to change your genetic makeup. After the War, there has been a 1,000-percent increase in the number of Siamese twins born in Vietnam. Today, Agent Orange is sti ll found in the soil. You can only destroy it by burning the soil. How do you do that?

I did the project in the market because there was no way it would be approved as an exh ibition. Even today, you need approvals to do exhibitions, although the subject of Agent Orange is no longer taboo. I also didn't want the show to be in a gallery where nobody would turn up. In any case, I had to find a way to realize the project. At that time, the government was encouraging people to run their own businesses. I found a shop that sold clothes in the market and asked the lady if she cou ld take a break for a month. As the market belonged to the government, people in charge came and asked what I was doing. I told them I just wanted to sell things. Employees from a government agency that dealt with the issue of Agent Orange also brought me to their office. While they screamed at me , they were inevitably giving me more information about the issue. Thankfully, they didn't shut the shop down.

About half the people who passed by the shop tried to ignore it. The rest were quite curious-half of them actually stopped and engaged me in an informal dialogue about the issue. As the word spread, resea rchers and medical students also came to the shop. Everything in the shop was for sale at less than a US$1 each. Most of the T-shirts were given away for

Dinh Q. Le, The Headless Buddha ,1997, installation , installation view.

free. The Vietnamese didn't want the were suffering from hysterical blindness. figurines and children's clothes. Even when Medically, there was nothing wrong with I gave them to my friends for free, their them. Their blindness was due to post­families would not keep these things in traumatic stress disorder. Their minds their homes. I sold about 100 items to many would shut down their vision because foreign tourists, particularly the Japanese. they had seen so much horror during Pol Perhaps they understood my work better Pot's reign and that they were uncared for due to their experiences with Hiroshima when they moved to America. The project and the Minamata mercury-poisoning was completely in white because this is disaster. the mourning calor of Asia. Viewers were

In The Texture ofMemory(1999-2000), you returned to the subject of Pol Pot's reign in Cambodia. This series is obviously very different from earlier projects. How did you come up with the idea?

Portraits of the victims at Tuol Sleng were embroidered onto white cotton sheets with thick white cotton , creating this Braille-like work. Braille is the only way that the blind can experience visual images. In California, I came across Cambodian women who

encouraged to touch the work so that oil from their fingers would stain the images and that portraits of the victims would become more pronounced on Ibe Texture of Memory. If we touch or face up to o ur memory, it will become clearer.

In From Vietnam to Hollywood (2003-2005), the technique of photo-weaving is used to deal with your memory of the Vietnam War. The series takes on a surreal quality where different images within a piece of work merge and dissolve into one another, not unlike the compositions of Dali's paintings. Is Dali's work a reference point to From Vietnam to Hollywood?

Not real ly, but my memo1y of the Vietnam War has indeed become surrealistic. The demarcation line between fact and fiCtion has disappeared. Once I visited my mum in California. At that time, there was a very big bush fire near her place. I recalled looking out at the sky and seeing helicopters dropping retardants to stop tlie

re. It was like a scene from the Vietnam ut t a w ac ua y an unag t

came from Hollywood. I never did see heTicopters when I was still in Vietnam dunng the War. It is important for me to recognize that my memory of the war has b~ome so Slippery.

Dinh Q. Ui, Mot Coi DiVe (detail), 1998, photographic installation.

In From Vietnam to Hollywood, images from Hollywood movies of the Vietnam War, including Born on the Fourth qf July and Ibe Quiet American,

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2006 ASIAN ART NEWS 65

are interwoven with pictures of our daily lives during the War and ~ss photos taken by Western photographers. These three sets of memone-s=are converging in my mind. I have also tr ied to inch~ press images taken by Vietnam e p ot a ers ut t e selection is quite limite . An American pubfisher has Kindly provided some of these images. I have not been able to find these images in Vietnam.

For the 5th Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art in Queensland, you have been commissioned to produce a video titled The Farmers and the Helicopters (2006). How does your video work extend your interest in weaving narratives of the victims affected by the Vietnam War or the Khmer Rouge?

Presented as a three-channel projection, there is a sequence in Tbe Farmers and the Helicopters that starts off with dragonflies in the sky. This is accompanied by a Vietnamese folk song sung by

people who had been attacked or circled by helicopters. Interestingly, they talk about the helicopter as a vicious animal that would come at them during the Vietnam War.

You have show,n mainly in the West. Is it important for the Vietnamese to see your work? How is the state of contemporary art in Vietnam?

a lady in the background. The Dinh Q. Le, Untitled (from The Texture of Memory series), 1999-2000,

It's important for the Vietnamese to see my work. However, there is no space or supporting infrastructure to show contemporary art. I'm one of the few Vietnamese artists who deal with the War away from the official version of things. In Vietnam, art has traditionally been associated with painting. The art associations, including the VAPA, exist under the government. This can be problematic, as the Photographers are sometimes rs_uired to tread the official line. A while a go, it was 'beautiful V~m. ' Now they are supposed to h ighlight our economic growth. T~e photographers tend to go for beautiful images in the fashion of National Geographic. Thankfully, there is now a small group of photographers who have studied scene cuts quickly to footage embroidery, cotton sheet and threads .

of helicopters in combat sourced from farming equipment. A farmer who comes Hollywood films and documentary. You to his shop has agreed to help him. He probably cannot tell them apart, which is hopes to use the helicopters to spray his not surprising. To lend credibility to their crops. They also hope that the helicopters films, Hollywood directors often mimic the can be used in emergencies to evacuate documentaries. people. More important, they want to show

In Vietnam, the helicopter has the world that the Vietnamese can achieve become somewhat iconic because the anything. Personally, I'm intrigued by Vietnam War was the first time helicopters the transition of the helicopter as a death were extensively used as a killing machine. machine to a machine of peace. They have This video is about two guys who are trying already made two helicopters. The first one, to build low-cost helicopters in Vietnam. which took six years to build, resembles an One of them has seen helicopters when American helicopter. They have traveled he was growing up during the War and around Vietnam looking at the ruins of has since become infatuated with them. American helicopters for inspiration. In Nowadays, he runs a small shop repairing the video, I have also interviewed four

abroad and have joined the VAPA. They are starting to produce very meaningful documentary work.

Personally, I'm still waiting for the day when Vietnam will look deep down iflsi"de and see how the War chan~ed the country. After the War, W"e'"'"didn't h;l¥e the luxurv to ponder on such issues. Everything was destroyed and we had to quickly move on. Today, our economy is back on track. We are also politically more .Qpen. Hopefully, our distance from t~will allow us to look at it with less pain. In terms of the art scene in Vietnam, from the small group of Vietnamese who are informed about contemporary art and the

Dinh Q. Le, Damaged Gene (detail),1998, mixed-media installation. Dinh Q. Le, Damaged Gene {detail),1998, mixed-media installation.

66 ASIAN ART NEWS NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2006

Dinh Q. Le, Untitled (from Vietnam to Hollywood series), 2003-2005, photo-weaving.

articles that I read from local papers, I'm In the past, rice has been a popular motif sure things will improve. for Asian-American artists. But it has now

There are many contemporary artists who have addressed the issue of identity in their works. In a way, your various projects are about your identity as a Vietnamese transplanted to America. Do you think there are artists who have exploited the issue to fulfill a Western fantasy of Asia?

Vietnam-American War documentary footage

become a cliche. In America, young artists are finding new ways of articulating their identities. Identity is no longer static; you can be whatever you want to be.

I think it is inevitable that artists tend to deal w ith the issue of identity because it's something close to their hearts. I'm sure some must have abused it to get recognized faster. However, as an artist, I

Scene from Apocalypse Now

Dinh Q. Le, The Farmers and the Helicopters, 2006, video stills.

NOVEMBER/ DECEMBER 2006

cannot possibly spend two or three years working on something that I'm not crazy about. You can tell me all about genetic manipulation but I will not engage the topic unless I have an emotional connection to it. I can't work on something that I don't feel meaningful. L\

Zhuang Wubin is a photographer and arts writer based in Singapore.

Mr. Tran Quoc Hai

ASIAN ART NEWS 67