Bản tiếng Việt tại đây.

PhotoHanoi’25 (PH’25) marks the third time I have participated in this biennale as part of its organizing /curatorial team. This familiarity places me in an uncomfortable but necessary position: that of writing critically about a platform I am part of, and by extension, about my own involvement in it. In Vietnam, public criticism, particularly within artistic and cultural circles, has long been approached with caution. Critique, even when constructive, is often interpreted as personal attack, consequently, silence and endurance become the default responses. This cultural tendency has contributed to an absence of robust art criticism, leaving many initiatives celebrated but rarely examined in depth. As a result, structural, curatorial, and conceptual weaknesses are thus allowed to pass without challenge, and without producing lessons that might strengthen future work.

It is from within this context that I feel compelled to write. If critique feels difficult, it is because it is necessary. Rather than positioning myself outside the frame, I choose to begin with the spaces and projects I have taken part in, acknowledging my own complicity as well as responsibility. Looking back at what did not work, especially the small, easily overlooked details, is not an exercise in fault finding, but a gesture of care. Without such reflection, progress risks becoming cosmetic, and improvement remains assumed rather than truly achieved.

During the process of working on PH’25, what troubled me the most were the exhibitions dealing with archival photography, especially materials from the colonial period. Photography’s arrival in Vietnam was, after all, a byproduct of colonization. This fact matters because PhotoHanoi is organized by the French Institute in Vietnam, and because institutions, however well intentioned, do not operate outside history. To present colonial-era photographs without sufficient framing, context, or counter-narratives risks more than curatorial thinness; it risks perpetuating the very power structures that produced those images in the first place. The colonial archive is never innocent. It was built to observe, classify, and dominate. And to aestheticize these processes is to smooth over their inherent violence. This concern became a recurring point of tension between myself and the French Institute. The debates were useful, but they were unresolved. How to make viewers move beyond visual beauty to confront historical truth? Eventually I gave in. I turned to writing and translating articles on how colonial archives might be approached, framed, and exhibited responsibly. It is simply in the hope that audiences (and the organizers alike) might understand what they are looking at, and look at it with a questioning mindset, rather than passively consuming (or worse celebrating) it purely for its aesthetic value.

Both in previous editions and again this year, PH has featured one (or two) exhibition by European photographers documenting Vietnam in the 70s, 80s and 90s. These bodies of work are undeniably visually accomplished. They trade in nostalgia, in grain and softness, in a past that feels distant enough to be comforting. Most importantly, they are safe. Safe to show, safe to celebrate, safe to agree upon. But safety, repeated often enough, curdles into stagnation. To return to the same visual template year after year is not only unnecessary, it is dull. This persistent romanticization of the past, whether deliberate or not, has consequences. It permits the international gaze to remain fixed on a Vietnam defined by war, recovery, or a subsidized era rendered quaint by time. Contemporary Vietnamese photography, in this framework, becomes an afterthought, or worse, invisible. The country is allowed to exist only as memory, never as a living.

Among the 22 exhibitions presented at PhotoHanoi’25, the allocation of resources toward exhibitions designated for local artists appears unreasonable. Quite a few of participating artists are familiar names, many of whom have appeared in previous editions of the biennale. Both solo shows from Vietnamese artists are individuals who have repeatedly occupied dual roles as artists and curator within PhotoHanoi. Such overlap raises a question about access and fair opportunity in an event that positions itself as a platform for broader photographic exchange.

At the group level, just two exhibitions, Shutterscape and Young Artists’ Photographic Practice, are primarily dedicated to showcasing Vietnamese practitioners. Both are conceptually and artistically compelling. Yet Young Artists’ Photographic Practice, despite its evident promise, is undermined by insufficient curatorial guidance and production support. Vietnam does not lack emerging talents, nor is there a shortage of strong new work. On the contrary, a generation of artists is working with seriousness and breadth, experimenting with form, subject matter, and photographic language in ways that speak to the country as it exists today. Yet too often, such work is met with preemptive anxiety over censorship, sidelined before it can even be evaluated on its artistic merit.

As “curator” is still a relatively new term and profession within Vietnam’s art landscape, more and more people have taken on the title without fully understanding of the responsibilities it entails. Though I was not trained as a curator, but from the position of an artist, I have a fairly clear sense of what one should reasonably expect from the role. During this year’s edition, in my role as producer and scenographer, I was deeply frustrated by the lack of professionalism shown by a local curator I collaborated with. This unprofessionalism manifested in multiple ways: unclear and inconsistent communication; a negligent approach to advising international artists on culturally sensitive issues; a failure to address shortcomings in the exhibition space’s infrastructure; and the inability to complete the necessary paperwork for exhibition permits on time. Even basic tasks such as properly editing or translating artists’ statements and biographies were handled carelessly.

The curator’s task is not merely to select and invite. It involves developing effective display strategies, understanding artworks both conceptually and technically, and articulating why they deserve to be shown, why they matter beyond the artist’s personal experience, and how they can connect with the audience. Without such mediation, art exhibitions risk becoming closed conversations, legible only to those already inside them. Yet while editing the texts for this year’s catalogue, I often found myself perplexed by the overly verbose, awkwardly academic writing styles adopted by some artists and curators. I respect individuality in artistic writing. But when sentences lose clear subjects and predicates; when new terminology is invented without explanation; or when complex concepts are deployed without clarifying anything at all, the text ceases to communicate. It begins to perform intelligence rather than convey meaning. 

It is the curator’s responsibility (and perhaps that of the artists themselves) to build a bridge between the exhibited artworks and the public; to interpret, contextualize, and invite engagement. When it is done well, even the most personal and intimate narratives that resist easy entry can be reached. When it is not, the burden unfairly falls on viewers to make sense of what they were never properly welcomed into.

Because the roles of curator, artist, and organizer remain so loosely defined in Vietnam, many art events risk becoming personal playgrounds for a small circle of practitioners. When boundaries blur, access narrows, and what might have been meant for a broader community quietly turns inward. This is why, when PH became an official event, I have made a personal decision: if I participate as a curator, I will no longer be an artist. The two roles demand different responsibilities, and occupying both within the same event undermines trust in the process. A biennale cannot credibly claim openness while allowing those who shape it to also center themselves within it.

Having been involved with PhotoHanoi since its zero edition, I have heard no shortage of opinions about what it is or how it should be. One comment has stayed with me the longest: “Vietnam isn’t ready for a photo festival.” I understand why people say this. After working through the realities of organizing PH’25, I have come to believe they may be right. In a cultural landscape constrained by censorship and limited freedom of expression, it is extraordinarily difficult to stage a genuinely open art festival, one in which artists have real control over how their work is shown and honestly confront social realities. Added to this are the gaps in aesthetic judgment, photographic literacy, production knowledge, and professional working methods among the curatorial and organizing teams.

And yet, I am tired of having no official spaces where photographic projects can be shared, seen, studied, and debated by broader audiences. Tired of searching for printers willing to produce art books off the record. Tired of staging exhibitions under the guise of “open studios.” Most of all, I am tired of having to look across the ocean for validation. These alternative modes of operation may serve as necessary resistance and temporary momentum, but resistance alone cannot sustain an art ecosystem. At some point, artists need legitimate platforms—places where work can meet the public directly, rather than circulating endlessly within a small art world. This is especially true when so much photographic work is rooted in everyday life, in shared realities that deserve to be seen beyond their creator’s circle.

Vietnam may never be fully “ready” for a photo festival, at least not by ideal or imported standards. But Vietnamese photographers and the photo community are ready. Over the past decade, a sustainable ecosystem has quietly taken shape: from school clubs to university-level B.A. programs; from small, independent photo spaces and galleries to emerging collectors; from giclée printing studios to public darkrooms and alternative process labs; and from modest local exhibitions to photography festivals with the capacity to engage internationally.

Ten years ago, I could not have imagined such a landscape.

But now that it exists, the question is no longer whether Vietnam is “ready,” but whether those shaping it, the organizers, curators, artists, galleries, and the photo community are prepared to take responsibility for strengthening, supporting, and sustaining it.