Dinh Q. Lê's artworks shown during lecture sparked my interest, and decided to look further into his works. Dinh Q. Lê is one of many talented Vietnamese artists, and he uses his art as a medium to portray his own experiences before, during, and after the war that swept through Vietnam until 1975.
Born in Hà Tiên, Vietnam, Lê and his family immigrated to the US to escape the war torn country, settling in Southern California. Lê eventually went on to study fine arts at UC Santa Barbara, as well as photography from The School of Visual Arts, New York. He currently resides and works in current day Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon), Vietnam. Lê is known for his work in photography, which he often splices, interweaves, and distorts. In doing so, he wishes to explore his own relationship to Vietnam’s complicated cultural and political history.
Dinh Q Le's artistic technique of woven photos are influenced by his childhood when he learned grass-mat weaving techniques. This procedure allows Lê to create large-scale photo-montages. Images are layered in a collage that melds variously selected images in a surreal manner, encapsulating his collective memories, anxieties, and mixed feelings. Given his Vietnamese heritage and his American upbringing, Lê combines evocative Vietnamese and Western war images in order to portray the transversal nature of his identity.
In his woven photo series "From Vietnam to Hollywood (2003–05)", Lê juxtaposes images by photojournalists with those from Hollywood movies about the American-Vietnam War, confronting and challenging very different depictions of the conflict. The resulting photo collage has a pixilated quality, and it juxtaposes images that distort one another.
The motivation for his endeavors are highlighted in an interview from ArtAsiaPacific magazine where "he explains that most Vietnamese are too fatigued to study [firsthand knowledge of the war], preferring to move on, while the current government’s strict control of information often distorts the truth to fit its version of past events." His interweaving of many different pieces of images may seem confusing and chaotic. However, this effect was made with determined intent. What he saw in American movies and media didn't match up to his experiences in Vietnam, but through his works, he wishes to portray the truth and challenge false perspectives of Vietnam.
Lê’s work, rooted in Vietnam’s recent history of war, draws from his personal history and its context. Through his photo-weavings, Lê explores issues of personal and collective memory, diving into the past to uncover what has been lost— to bring back the memories of real experiences that have been suppressed or distorted throughout history. He confronts issues of history and identity, both personal and political, addressing the experience of migration and the associated shifts in identities that are its consequence. His photographic art entwines collective strands of identity and history, elucidating the complex interactions between both of his homelands: Vietnam and the United States. Apparent contradictions are reconstructed into visual form, providing a new lens on Vietnamese-American history.
