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Never before have I seen so purely the role of the photographer. The visit to the War Remnants Museum completely moved me. It didn't so much give me a new perspective, as brought to light something I've always known, but never had been open enough to see at this level. Coming to Vietnam enabled me to fully comprehend that which I've always known in my soul: it is our duty to create. God made us intelligent beings. Not only do we all create in our own way, artistic mediums cover a wide spectrum from my vantage point, but we must create in order to survive, to live freely, to live fully. Our development as infants is dependant upon creative phantasies. Those who suffered through the creation of my master's thesis know my strong affinity for the work of psychoanalysts Hanna Segal and Melanie Klein - whose work with children led to extraordinary findings on the comingling of psychology and art. Es decir, we are born to create, we don't develop properly unless we do, and we do it all the time. Not only is it in our nature, but when used to preserve history, it is noble and pure.
Throughout history, artists have used their talents to record significant events. Winslow Homer sketched on the Civil War battlefields of America, his prints published in Harper's Weekly. Spanish explorers of Pre-Columbian Latin America brought artists to capture the Mayan civilization in the jungles. Art can be an historical document as much as a personal reflection of the artist's internal world. The best is both at the same time.
As I sweated through the "Requiem" photography exhibition several days ago, I was struck by my environment - no fancy labels, no climate control, just images - one after the next - remnants of controversy, human suffering, brutality -- all an exhibition needs is images -- their strength is enough.
The exhibition featured photographs by 134 photographers from 11 different nations that lost their lives during the Vietnam War (American War here). The diversity of the nationalities struck me: this was not a one-sided display. Here is history: you see it, you decide. Here were young men and women (Georgette Louise Meyer, from Wisconsin, USA, known professionally as Dicky Chapelle), who gave their lives so that the world could see what was happening in Vietnam. I had never heard of Dicky Chapelle before, but the photo of her face down in the mud, near death, being read her last rights, juxtaposed to her favorite portrait of herself in masculine garb posed with her camera in hand, made me feel like I at least knew her mission. Each image focused on the war's reality: a strong American soldier lays his head on an office desk and weeps, a Vietnamese mother and children cross a river to escape American bombs (this photo by Kyoichi Sawada won a Pulitzer Prize), Larry Burrows' spread from Life magazine, a photograph of a Japanese photographer's lost camera with a bullet hole in it, Henri Huet's photo "Silhouette of Death," War Zone C, Vietnam, 1966, "The body of an American paratrooper killed in action in the jungle near the Cambodian Border, is raised to an evacuation helicopter," (Associated Press), the stark diagonal of that body being lifted through the air as captured from the photographer's stance on the ground -- all of these caused me to pause. Robert Capa was the first correspondent killed while he was working on a story "Bitter Rice," showing the contrast of peasants in rice fields alongside war tanks. Larry Burrows, Henri Huet, and Kent Potter (age 23!) were killed in a helicopter crash in Laos. Photos were labeled: the last photograph of Larry Burrows, the last photo this photographer took, photo salvaged from the camera of photographer after death. In the last minutes of their lives, they were working to record these horrific events. They were talented, certainly, fixing cameras to guns to get images from outside the plane -- putting themselves in the front lines so those at home could see a bit of the harsh reality -- so that even those who weren't directly affected by it could begin to understand.
Undoubtedly, this is an emotional exhibition to view -- the guestbook by the back door serves as proof. I watched a man sit and write his anti-American feelings with such determination: "America is an atrocity to mankind. Will they ever learn?" I knew we would encounter anti-American sentiment. I thought I was prepared -- but it is entirely different when he stares you in the eye. All I can say is I too want peace in this world. I wondered if I'd ever stand on the soil of Iraq or Afghanistan, learning about the bravery of the photographers who are capturing the courages and horrors of the present day's events -- grateful for the truth of their images, saddened because they ever had to create them in the first place.
The museum also displays images of agent orange deformations. This was certainly gruesome and disheartening. There is also a French guillotine and a "Tiger Cage" prison exhibition. These things are difficult to view -- but nevertheless I think it is necessary to see these things if you are here in Vietnam -- if only to understand, what is left? what are the remnants?
"Requiem," and the opportunity it provided me to see the noble work of war photographers, was a deeply moving exhibition. This war, so steeped in controversy, was terrible for all involved. And what is left years later? Pain, memories, emptiness, images that move you, that tell it all, make you look, and look again. They do more than depress the heart - but empower - they empower the viewer with a sense of the human ability to stand in the face of atrocity and capture it. Whatever our creative force is, let us be true to it, and use it for the preservation of truth.
Later that night, I called my mother from our balcony on Pham Ngu Lao, so that she could hear the monks chanting from the Chua An Lac Pagoda across the alley. I mentioned the power of our visit. She only said, "That's why we were out in the streets." And I answered, "I'm glad you were, I feel I should be now."
AEH
Thanks Rich
"Photographs are the images of history, rescued from the oblivion of mortality." -David Helberstan
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Jill Conner
non-member comment
war photography
Hi Guys, It's wonderful to see you pursue your dreams! I liked this entry a lot - as I completed a very long essay titled "Mining the Beautiful", claiming that documentary photography, esp. war photog., can indeed be beautiful if Kant's theory of Beauty is removed. In my view, beauty is that which imparts knowledge. Take care, Jill