“VIETNAMESE WE”
ZIXPHOT VARIANT OF ZIXBOOK CONCEPT
a new concept of photo book
when Photography, Poetry, Music and Languages meet…
Summary of the trilingual photo art book with DVD
What could be more challenging than portraying the 90 million inhabitants of a fascinating country characterized by a cultural diversity of 54 different ethnic groups and a past that stretches back 4,000 years? How can you grasp the spirit of a nation without becoming trapped in the clichés of its multifaceted cultural footprint? Furthermore, all the political, social and religious issues this involves, amplified by ignorance, narrow-mindedness and intolerance, are bound to make tackling such an ambitious and controversial subject even more complex. Bùi Huy Trang presents a humanist and subjective vision of the Vietnamese people. His sensitive and empathic eye leads us first through 50 B&W photographs and 50 color photographs. All these images were taken with Leica M cameras during five reportage trips across Vietnam between 1997 and 2010. Whether real, virtual or mental, they then fuse in the DVD with the mystical music of jazz composer and pianist, Niels Lan Doky, and the untrained voice of the author reading two of his prose poems in English, French and Vietnamese in accompaniment to the photographs, which are deceptively simple, yet remarkably full of life and truth.
“Translators are servants. They labor in silence, mining a source, conveying its soul to others. Bùi Huy Trang is a photographer and a poet, but he is also a translator, bringing us a depth of soul we seldom see… With this work, we tour Vietnam. We experience the essence of life for ordinary Vietnamese citizens, both Kinh and other ethnic groups. We reach across the world and explore a heritage. We delve into a wider vision of Quê Hương with Bùi Huy Trang as he explores his heritage and translates the source of his own soul.” Hanoï, 2010 Lady Borton
“To get straight to the point, I love both the concept of Zixphot, invented by Bùi Huy Trang, and the one hundred photos he has selected to portray Vietnam…Without denying their past, the Vietnamese of today, to whom Bùi Huy Trang has dedicated his photos, don’t want us to forget that they also live in a country “just like any other country”, with all its problems, its injustices, its daily life and its plans for the future. Rooted in the present, modern Vietnam, Zixphot – also – is presented as a sort of technological and editorial “game”. As you may imagine, I rather like that.” Paris, 2011 Jean-Claude Guillebaud
- Vietnamese We is an atypical photography art book on a real people.
- 252 pages, 100 photos, format 8.4”x 8.4”, 2 lbs
- Luxury bound paperback, trilingual edition – Printed in France
- Paper: Fedrigoni Symbol Tatami White & Stucco Old Mill Gesso
- Photographs by Bùi Huy Trang – Music by Niels Lan Doky
- Foreword by Lady Borton – Afterword by Jean-Claude Guillebaud
- DVD included – patented book concept
- Slideshow with music plus 2 prose poems narrated in 3 languages
- Publisher: Zixbook Publishing – Release: 1 Dec. 2011
- ISBN 978-2-917585-06-1
- Price: €35 ($49) + Post & Packing
