Re/cover no. 6, 8, and 9

2013 - Photography (Photography)

100 x 170 cm each

Phan Quang

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Phan Quang’s portrait series Re/cover grapples with a lesser-known history in Vietnam. After World War II, many Japanese soldiers who fought in Vietnam stayed in the country. They married Vietnamese women, had children, and lived in the country until Japan recalled them home. Leaving their wives and children behind, these families forged lives shaped by loss. Travelling to the rural region outside Hanoi where the descendants of these families live, Phan documented them in their homes, filled with images of their fathers and grandfathers, and with testimonial objects that bear witness to the familial impact of displacement and borders. To capture the presence of these lost forefathers, the artist draped his subjects with a white chiffon fabric traditionally associated with Japanese wedding ceremonies. The veils render the ghostly presences of the Japanese soldiers visible while also marking the subjects to highlight the way they’ve been othered and discriminated against. Staging these marked bodies in photographs that echo performance documentation, Phan challenges the defining nature of the historical archive; reflecting on the possibility of image-making as a tool for healing.

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Visual artist and photographer Phan Quang stages nuanced compositions that illustrate the relationship between global historical events and the personal histories of families and communities in Vietnam. Working across sculpture, painting, video, and photography, the artist’s style is marked by a quiet elegance, with great attention paid to material and texture. Before he began making art professionally, Phan worked for over a decade as a photojournalist for some of Asia’s best-known media, including Forbes, and Vietnam Economic Times. Currently, he is a photography lecturer at University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Ho Chi Minh City.

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Colors:

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• family.n.01
• marriage.n.01
• war.n.01
• supplanting.n.01
• discrimination.n.01
• portrait.n.02