DISHONEST

Skills/Software: Adobe InDesign, Book Making, Research

DISHONEST is a two-edition photo album that explores the concept of truth through photojournalism during and post-Vietnam War. The 35 images depicted in this album were taken when I visited the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The essay written on the cover and the museum captions (English and Vietnamese) were handwritten.

Final edition

Final edition with photos

Final inner handwritten covers

Final inner covers

Process (”Truth” and Album):

Truth is not a binary concept. Someone else’s truth can be hurtful and shameful for ourselves, and it can be difficult to accept responsibility and hold yourself accountable. No matter how clear or obvious a truth is, a person who is not ready to hear the truth will not listen. However, progression can only occur when one becomes self-aware and can accept how their actions and words affect others. In the case of a collective country’s shame, not acknowledging the truth will only lead to generational shame and hindered development in a social world. Through this photo album, I explore what truth is and how a purer truth can be depicted through a link between the written museum captions and images of the displays that I have taken. The opaque vellum paper acts as a filter over the images, allowing the viewer to make the conscious decision to view the war image behind it. The handwritten text serves to show that the truth being shown in the album is from one individual’s perspective and does not function as the ultimate truth, and the captions that spiral around the images force the reader to slow down and hear the museum’s truth.The unbound images encourage a random viewing order, showing that each person intakes and sees the truth differently. The images are left unedited, blurry, and zoomed out as a metaphor for how truth can easily be distorted to fit a particular narrative.

Prototypes

Prototype 1 - Testing box dimensions and construction

Prototype 2 - Experimenting with various text colors, typographic layout, and vellum overlay.

Prototype 3 - Testing my written essay to see how it would look and fit onto the cover of the box.

About the Museum:

The War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam contains some of the most raw and impactful documentation of war and ranks as one of the top ten museums in Asia. Stories told through photographs taken by international photojournalists present during the war, many of whom lost their lives, capture a small fragment of the devastation and loss experienced by the Vietnamese people during the 20 year war between the communist north and the anti-communist south. The communists were supported by the Soviet Union and China whereas the south was backed primarily by the USA and other anti-communist countries. Vietnam was essentially the center of conflict between communism and democracy, and the war dragged on longer than necessary.

The site of the museum holds much historical and cultural significance to Vietnam. In 1790, the site was the location of the Khai Tuong Pagoda, and was where Prince Nguyen Phuc Dam was born in 1791. During the French occupation, the pagoda was converted into a French stronghold dubbed Fort Barb in 1860, but was destroyed a year later. The land itself constantly changed hands until 1947 when it became Saigon Medical University. However, in 1961 the university was relocated and the buildings and land converted to house important US operations like the US embassy and the Joint United States Public Affairs Office. In September 1975, after the war, the Wei Crime Exhibition House was established to document the French colonization and the American war. In 1990, the museum was renamed the War Remnants Museum.

The museum provides a space for remembrance, reflection, and acknowledgement of war crimes. Because the museum is located where the war was, this allows museum-goers a glimpse at the war from the Vietnamese perspective. In Vietnam, the war is called the “American War.”

My Visit:

I had the opportunity to visit on two occasions. The first time I visited was in October 2023 and prior to the visit, I had read that the museum contained uncensored recollections of war and considering I knew little about the Vietnam War, I was intrigued. After purchasing my ticket and stepping through the gate, I toured the courtyard first which included a small portable building containing information about the French occupation and torture devices used in the prison camps, as well as retired planes, tanks, and other large artillery used during the war. Then, I entered the 3-floor building that housed eight permanent and one temporary exhibition. The ground floor was where the temporary exhibition and souvenir shop were located, so I skipped this and went to the second floor. The layout of the second and third floors were the same – connected rooms lined the exterior walls of the building and were separated from the interior communal bench area by glass walls and doors, many of which were covered in posters. The rooms held exhibits including historical facts, the prison regime, the world and anti-war, crimes of war and aggression, war and peace, etc.

The displays I examine in this photo album are “Requiem” and “Agent Orange in the War.” War photographs were blown up, framed, and mounted on the walls. A majority of the image descriptions had to be read at a smaller size on surfaces that extended out from and lined the wall, similar to a long, legless table. Due to the sizes of the rooms and the crowd, I skipped reading some of the descriptions. When I visited a second time in February 2024, I was able to spend more time with the displays and descriptions. The inclusion of photojournalist portraits, American soldiers and their families post-war, Vietnamese civilians and all of their stories was compelling. The stories provided a tangible human effect and provoked empathy.

Concluding my tour, I did not get the sense that there was any lingering anger directed at the U.S. Instead, the wording in the displays seemed to document the facts of what occurred during the war and focused on the remembrance and awareness of war crimes and consequences of warfare, and focused little on memorializing the event. The exhibit did not appear to be biased in only showing tragedy and crimes committed against the Vietnamese people, but also included images of American veterans’ sufferings during and after the war. I was also intrigued by the layout of the building because the display rooms had no seating, so if you wanted to sit down and rest your legs, you had to exit the room to the central area. This could have been done to move viewers along and prevent overcrowding of the galleries. It may also offer the audience a reprieve from the cruel depictions of the acts of war.

Reflection:

There are countless angry reactions from American visitors online who accused the museum of slandering the U.S. by depicting American soldiers as “brutally slaughtering infants and children.” I was appalled by these reactions because I felt the exhibits were more about remembrance, anti-war in general, and listed out the facts of what happened. Furthermore, considering the My Lai massacre was so atrocious that the US courts prosecuted the offenders, I wondered who exactly was writing the history told in US schools. Having grown up in the US public school system, I remember my teachers barely talking about the Vietnam war aside from the basic facts of it occurring and the usage of Agent Orange. I do not recall my history textbooks discussing the consequences of the chemical, nor the war crimes committed by American soldiers. I came to the revelation that truth is easily distorted, hidden, and worst of all, forgotten. The War Remnants museum is committed to preserving and retelling the history as it occurred and conveys a desire to move forward into the future with peace.

Photojournalism:

While images of war are meant to evoke empathy, photojournalism can result in a desensitization to war images, glorification of war, and without context, false narratives. Because the Vietnam War was the first war to have easy access to cameras, partly due to the U.S. 's arrogance, there were around 600 photojournalists during the war from all around the world, many of whom were American. A large number of them had never worked as a photojournalist before and were drawn to the adventure of war. While their intentions may not have been pure, the images they produced leaned towards unfiltered truth. At the time, there were many experienced photojournalists accused of setting up scenes for their images, but those who romanticised war would risk their lives to be closer to the action, and obtain unbiased photography that depicted the truth of what was actually going on in Vietnam. However, the US media during the war was heavily catering to the US government, and any images released to the public were censored to ensure the government was painted in a good light and the images were not graphic. Oftentimes, the context of the images were missing. The US government began cracking down on visa issuance when they realized the photojournalists were taking images that would turn the public against them. Photojournalists who briefly returned home were denied a visa to return to Vietnam. Most of the photographs we commonly associate with the war now were actually publicly released after the war had ended.

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