Intertwined

After our research in class about Danh Vo and his artwork, I decided to research other Vietnamese artists. One that I found and wanted to explore more was Dinh Q. Le and his artwork series called “From Vietnam to Hollywood.”

This series is a collection of images that are woven together, inspired by the weaving of Vietnamese grass mats. Each piece weaves together images from Hollywood movies of the Vietnam War with photos taken by photographers during the war. 

This series of works demonstrates how history takes on conflicting perspectives, similar to what Bui was discussing about the Saigon Execution photo. By weaving together these photos, Le highlights the different versions of the Vietnam War presented by Hollywood versus actual photos of the events. The choice of using colored Hollywood images and black-and-white photos further highlights the contrast between the two perspectives. Additionally, the colored images stand out much more than the photographs, illustrating how the American perspective of the war tends to dominate depictions of the Vietnam War without much consideration for other perspectives. Viewers have to spend time with the artworks to fully see both images, in the same way people have to spend time to realize both sides of the Vietnam War. Furthermore, the photographs create a shadow-like image of the movie still. This emphasizes that, despite these movie stills dominating modern ideas of the Vietnam War, there is still an underlying reality. Even though Western perspectives are more well-known, Vietnamese perspectives are still underlying and will always exist, even if they are shadows. Both perspectives will always be intertwined, literally woven together. Through the work of artists like Le and many other advocates, Vietnamese perspectives are slowly leaving shadows and finally coming to light.