VIETNAM PHOTOGRAPHS

December, 2002

 

   In December, 2002, John Paulson traveled to Vietnam as a guest of the Smithsonian Institution Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage and the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology in Hanoi to train Vietnamese museum professional in the methods of documenting traditional culture through film.  The fruits of this endeavor will appear in an exhibition to travel Vietnam, and possibly air on television.  John spent time in the Mekong Delta instructing the group in the technical, creative, and aesthetic aspects of documentary filmmaking.  Following two days in the town of Soc Trang viewing films and comparing storytelling methods, we arrived in the village of Tra Nien during the time of its annual festival.  Over the course of nearly a week the team filmed in Tra Nien as its residents gathered to celebrate the secular and the spiritual.

 

   John’s travels began in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), south into the Mekong Delta to Soc Trang, on to Bac Lieu, and finally to Tra Nien located about 7 hours by car south of Ho Chi Minh City.  These are some of the images he met along the way.

 

 

 

 

Return to