My Own Words: Ha Dao on MATCA

7 Jun

Conversations on Vietnamese photography
By Ha Dao

'My Own Words' is a monthly series which features personal essays by practitioners in the Southeast Asian art community. They deliberate on their locality's present circumstances, articulating observations and challenges in their respective roles.

When flipping through the pages of our worn-out family album, I came across a portrait of my sister and me. It brought up vivid memories of a Sunday morning. I was around four, and my sister was nine. We clutched each other on the back of mom's bike as she pedaled through narrow alleys to a neighborhood studio. At home, she had put me in my best ruffle dress and painted our lips red with the same lipstick she wore every day to work. A lady there had my sister slip on a piece of fabric with clips on the back to give off the impression of a tube dress. The photographer must have told us to smile for the camera.

Anthropologist Christopher Pinney once described photo studios as "chambers of dreams" where the participants' fantasies play out without inhibition. In our case, the desire was to appear feminine, bourgeois, agreeable, more so than we actually were. Our innocent childhood portrait runs contrary to the common perception of photography's efficiency to capture reality.

Apart from nostalgia, it gives me a sense of discovery which is much needed to keep going. The photography scene in Vietnam is small and sometimes feels like an echo chamber. Over the last five years with Matca, I have had multiple requests from art journalists and scholars for insights, as if we were the local experts in a poorly documented area. In fact, it has been a learning curve for us, with peaks and valleys.

In late 2016, I received the invitation to manage Matca's editorial content from the co-founder Linh Pham, one of Vietnam’s few freelance photojournalists. He told me about his difficulties gaining access to the scene when starting out. The irony remains that it is still much easier to familiarise oneself with Western household names than contemporary practitioners right in our country. Google results for "Vietnamese photographers" are fluffy at best and stereotypical at worst. While rising social networks have enabled photographers to freely share and discuss their photos, practical information regarding educational and professional opportunities is often kept on the downlow. With the dearth of photographic centres like museums, galleries, or schools, many crucial conversations take place at coffee shops and beer gardens. These casual third spaces have seen knowledge and names passed down and circulated. But like any circle, the cliquish nature means membership has to be approved.

With humble resources, Matca first took the form of a bilingual online journal, which was mainly aimed at Vietnamese readers but also opened doors to interested audiences beyond the country’s borders. As a newcomer myself, I was eager to utilise it as a viable excuse to approach photographers. The initial focus was on self-initiated works which were created out of personal urgencies, regardless of their genres. Without a proper outlet, these micronarratives slip under the radar.

Matca team as of January 2021. From left to right - Ha Dao, Le Xuan Phong, Linh Pham. HANOI, 2021.

At a glance, this attempt could be interpreted as an act of resistance against local mainstream newspapers that favours photographs showcasing the beauty of Vietnam, often with praises for their formal qualities and nationalist overtone. While I regard the hunt for perfect compositions as restrictive, I have little interest in proving one kind of photography is better than another. My wish is to hear photographers speak about their motivations and creative processes, which public coverage often leaves out and as a result, further perpetuates the myth surrounding artmaking. With that in mind, we built Matca to become a utilitarian platform that amplifies the voices of practitioners, writers, and researchers from different disciplines. It is a vessel for showing, thinking, and writing photography.

Fast forward to 2021: our scope of interests has expanded, resulting in a physical space, an imprint, and many educational initiatives in collaboration with local and international organisations. The website has been updated to reflect this whirlwind of development. As for our editorial content, Matca remains the only publication in Vietnam specialising in photography, hosting an ever growing archive of more than 200 stories to date. We have interviewed photographers aged from 18 to 85, including emerging talents, pictorialist masters, and world-renowned contemporary artists. Needless to say, this would not have been possible without a supportive network of contributors who share our vision. On the one hand, I feel inspired by the fact that the more we see, the more we understand how much is missing in the full picture. On the other hand, I have become conscious of the ostensibly unbridgeable gap between current international discourses and the state of photography in Vietnam.

Elsewhere in the world, photography is going through relentless questioning. In the so-called post-truth era, the documentary tradition seems to crumble under critical deconstruction of its social impacts and ethical ramifications. At the same time, as photography gains a foothold in the art world, galleries welcome works created in a studio, woven together from archives, produced as a unique piece using an alternative printing process, those that move away from their photographic nature. "Straight photography" — to record without intervention — is implied to be a mechanical act that lacks intent.

These heated debates and movements, however, seem irrelevant to most Vietnamese practitioners. In our exchange, the conversation consistently comes back to how to sustain one's practice. The pandemic has just brought under the spotlight practical issues such as mobility limitations and dwindling resources. That is the daily reality of the majority of photographers who juggle between a day job and family responsibilities. They work on a story for some time, leave the photographs on a hard drive, then put an end to it under the pressure of providing for their family. It sounds all too familiar.

What is the tangible outcome for personal projects after all in a vacuum-like environment? What opportunities are there for non-English speaking photographers, who have neither the experience writing grant proposals nor the appropriate vocabulary to gain recognition? Are only people without financial burdens allowed to pursue their craft full time? These questions remain unresolved. I am not an art historian with valuable hindsight. I do not have enough input to speculate about the future. As cheesy as it sounds, when faced with uncertainties, it helps to stay rooted in the present.

I have recently had the pleasure of introducing two young talented photographers on Matca. We have been in conversation for some time, through in-person interviews and Facebook messages. Nguyen Thanh Hue, then a student at Vietnam Academy of Journalism and Communication, portrays migrant workers in their private living spaces for her graduation project. Hoang Cao, a university freshman, reconstructs memories with his own father by staging family photos.

Nguyen is aware of the well-covered topic but persists in seeing for herself. The strum and drum of life are neither aestheticised nor dramatised in her photographs. She took time making her presence known and captured with tenderness intimate details of the workers' dwelling places. In unplastered concrete rooms, each family comes up with their own way to give the temporary residence a homely feel.

Cao's acting skill shines in this debut work where he asks his estranged father to pose with him in fictional situations. Its playful, comical facade hides the dark truth behind their strained relationship. “Perhaps I don’t need him; I need unreal ideals of him,” the 20-year-old wistfully confesses.

Their photographs and words remind me of several crucial things at the moment when the banality of getting tasks done comes crashing down on me. One of the greatest joys of photography is that it can either be a window or a mirror to help one make sense of the world. It is refreshing to see the results of their experimentation, to take a chance, follow through and see what comes out in the end. And last but not least, while vastly different, their distinct visions are both built on vulnerability, a willingness to put themselves on the line in an attempt to understand. Perhaps what excites me about their works, and similarly the rediscovery of my childhood photo, is the rich possibility for genuine connection.

This exercise in reflection has made me a little weary, considering that I have not gone far enough to look back. But after navigating through the pandemic, it has become more apparent that the online platform to share works and ideas has always remained central to everything Matca do, driven by an underlying belief in an open exchange of opinions. By sharing my own conflicts, concerns, and blind spots, I hope to dissolve the impulse to speak as the final authority and invite others to push forward this unfolding conversation.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of A&M.

This essay was first published in CHECK-IN 2021, A&M’s first annual publication. Click here to read the digital copy in full, or to purchase a copy of the limited print edition.

Read all My Own Words essays here.