The Dawn of Translation
PHOTOGRAPHY · 2018
A series of photographs, text works and drawings produced while on a residency in northern Vietnam.
What appears below was part of a project at a studio residency in December 2018 in the Hòa Binh Province situated in north-west Vietnam. It is home to a minority (roughly 1.5% of the population), known as the Muong. They lay claim to a special indigeneity dating back to the second century, when the population began to become heavily Sinicised. Living in the mountains, they escaped the same level of inter-racial mixing as those in the more populated lower regions. The art project began as “Drawn in Translation”, in which I wrote fragments each day and translated them electronically first into French then into Vietnamese, anticipating errors. These texts were then rendered on a paper roll, and interspersed with drawings taken from photographs, some of which are reproduced below. As a flow from the first project, this photo-essay is entitled, “The Dawn of Translation”, as it expresses the many mismatches that occur in encounters with people, landscapes and customs different from one’s own.
