Vietnam is another special place for me. It plays an important role in the Family's mythology, as my father spent 36 months in the Northern region, from 1948 to 1950. He was a soldier of the French army, Vietnam was still under the French administration at that time. I went to Hanoi a few times for business, but I could not manage to take decent pictures, nor to structure a project, not enough time. I planned to visit the places my father stayed in, but I never felt comfortable enough to complete it.
In 2010, I took the opportunity of another trip to visit Hanoi, simply wandering around and taking street snapshots, without feeling the burden of confronting memories. It is not a documentary project strictly speaking. But it was a way to reconnect to the my father's youth, and to have a conversation together based on visual memories we could share, even if our respective paths and the meaning we could associate to the pictures were largely different. A way to cross our paths again and connect with the family history.
In 2010, I took the opportunity of another trip to visit Hanoi, simply wandering around and taking street snapshots, without feeling the burden of confronting memories. It is not a documentary project strictly speaking. But it was a way to reconnect to the my father's youth, and to have a conversation together based on visual memories we could share, even if our respective paths and the meaning we could associate to the pictures were largely different. A way to cross our paths again and connect with the family history.
