Thắng "lí luận" là một trong những người đâu tiên đến và lập nghiệp với nghề buôn sứ tại bến sông Hồng, bạn này đã hơn 40, chuyên mua tận gốc, bán tận ngọn, thường xuyên đưa hàng lên Vĩnh Phúc, Hoà Bình bằng xe máy, từng làm KimĐồng cho một thiếu tướng quân đội nên khá hiểu biết, vì thế chúng tôi quyết định chọn bạn này đại diện cho những người nơi đây. Nhóm A tiếp xúc với bạn này hơi khó vì bạn đã va chạm quá nhiêu với chính quyền, với báo chí nên tỏ ra chưa cởi mở lắm. Hy vọng mấy hôm tới bạn Lâm của tôi sau một vài trận bia nữa sẽ thuyết phục được bạn này để làm việc cùngLabels: buôn bán, sông Hồng, Sứ, team A
Edit days are not the most fun but we managed to get two videos finished in two days.
Linh and I found a
rhythm and started to work on the words and images together. We will each work on a
separate story as well while I am away till March which should be interesting. I want to try and do something different with the installation story and with
Linh's help with the words I think we can achieve it.
Linh's fourth story I am suggesting should be close to the heart of the Art School. It seems with
Linh studying there this is a great chance to get very intimate and show aspects of life I would never be able to get to as an outsider. I am away now for a couple of months and after I come back there will be little time to shoot so am hoping it will all come together at the end.
Labels: Art School, D J Clark
I think
Linh is going to kill me. She had set up the day with an artist who had recently returned from studying in Italy. I had met her at the exhibition opening we went to with Son a few weeks ago and something just was not right. Everything
Linh told me about her did not fit a normal story and there was something wrong about following her with a camera in the same way as the other stories.
"I have a new idea" I announced once I finally found
Lihn outside the apartment. "This needs to look like and installation" I went on.
Linh agreed and we set about the apartment taking pictures of the small details. I had seen a recent Andy
Warhol exhibit in Scotland within which was this series of videos of people just looking into a video camera. "I want her to talk, just talk about Hanoi, her art, about life",
Linh (the other one
that is
the subject) agreed but
said she only had an hour and she also had to eat. We talked anxiously as she prepared food and ate. I was worried about time, but
knew I could come back. We snapped into action and began working, it was simple but neither
Linh or I had any idea whether this was going to work. I kept saying to myself, sometimes the simplest ideas work best. We will see on Sunday when we start to edit.
Labels: Art School, D J Clark
Le
Huy Hoang was very different to how I had imagined him. Born during the war he had lost his father at the age of three and then later when he was just thirteen he was sent to a military training camp. His father was Cambodian and mother Vietnamese but
Hoang was clear about his
nationality. "I am a human" he told me, "simply a human".
After years as a soldier, then a refugee and then finally returning to Vietnam it seemed
Hoang was finally happy. He had taken up art and was advised to use his life
experience to influence his work. After 20 years since leaving Cambodia as a refugee he returned to
participate in a large scale group exhibition with other artists who were dealing with their
experiences under Pol Pot.
Hoang however showed no bitterness to his life. Now happily
married with a four year old daughter he was now settled. Settled with his family as well as with his occupation. It was an interesting day which once again
Linh had set up perfectly. Through
Hoang we were exploring the past and linking it to now, to me we were re-imaging Hanoi.
Labels: Art School, D J Clark
On the way to the park today, Thanh showed me an article that he had written for Dep magazine. Nice to see some of his work published over 10 pages!
For the rest of the week we have both spent many hours in the park documenting little 2 year old Trang and her family. We have now got to know the regular faces and greet our new friends as they pass by.
We have consumed many cups of green tea and munched many sun flower seeds, a needed ritual to spend time with people in the park.
Little Trang spends everyday in the park with her mother and grandmother. She brings much joy to the regulars. Some of whom you can tell have led a hard life. I love the fact that the park draws people from all walks of life, rich and poor.
Trang is a sweet spirited and happy little girl. I love the way children embrace life and people around them. I have enjoyed photographing her and will miss her laughter when I return home.
Labels: Hazel Thompson, Lenin Park
After finishing documenting our third character, the salesman, we decided to return to Lenin Park to find another person who's story we wanted to tell.
For two days and and I returned to the park at different times to find another person who would be willing to let us document their life. We realized how lucky we had been in finding the first three people. all of them, the hip hop dancer, the tailor and the saleman had all been so open and allowing access into their lives. Thanh and I wanted to to the story of one of the women selling food and drink in the park. They were all quite nervous as they do not have a licence to sell goods, but there was one women who was very chatty and she agreed to let us follow her one lunchtime.
As we started to work with her though, she suddenly demanded money to tell her story. When we told her we were not paying people, just documenting real lives, she then refused to let us work with her.
So frustrated after two days lost, Thanh and I returned to the park. Thats when we met 2 year old Trang and her mother. Trang's mother was very shy, but we found out that they are both at the park everyday.
Labels: Hazel Thompson The Park
We went to see Chi's house in Hai Ba Trung dictric, quite a ride from Hazel's place, on our bikes one afternoon. The 3 floor house is located in a small alley that leads up to another (wider) alley. Ngõ, ngách - that's typical of Hanoi. The back of her house is right behind the school, but she has to go round to get there.
Chi's room seems to be the nicest one in the house, bright and pink. She lives with her grandma and grandad, her family lives in Berlin.
The Lenin park is far from her house. Sometimes her dad (when he is visiting) drops her there, sometimes Tiep picks her up, but Chi often drives her bike to the park to dance. When Tiep comes, he can't be at her house, but has to wait in the main street. He looks just too hip hop to her neighbours' tastes.
Labels: Thanh Nguyen, The Park
On last Friday we followed Mr Xuyen to his grandson's school. It was a long walk though the streets of Hanoi Old Quarter. Mr Xuyen said that the young 8 yr old boy is a "hoc sinh gioi" (very good student). Thien likes books very much. He is quite shy. He only started speaking to us a bit of English when we left.
The traffic was horrible. We constantly crashed into motobikes (and people as well). But the sky was beautiful:)
Labels: Thanh Nguyen, The Park
Today Thanh and I have been hiding away doing post production.
The process always takes longer than you expect.
Its much more enjoyable when you are working with someone, creating and bouncing ideas off each other.
Labels: Hazel Thompson The Park
We followed Xuyen to go and collect his grandson from School. A weekly ritual which he says gives him good exercise. It was quite a walk weaving in between bikes and tourists.
I was so focused looking through the lens that I nearly got hit by bikes a few times.
It was our final day shooting with Xuyen.
I had come to enjoy the hot strewberry tea his wife always made us when we came to visit. They have been so welcoming to us and open sharing their lives.
When was the last time you danced? Where? Perhaps it was not in the street and not in the morning.
We started last week by going to the Lenin plaza at 6 am. The place was still dark at that time, but then the light came on, it was so beautiful. We chatted with people who come here almost every morning to play badminton. Some has been doing it for 20 years now. Then we followed a man - he used to work as a tailor to his home. There's a tailor shop there, not his own, but he sometimes helps them on cutting men's suits. We ate "pho" for breakfast with him twice. He actually gave Hazel a pink bicycle to use when she is here.
We should get a picture of us driving on our bikes though the streets of Hanoi. Hazel really loved that.
Labels: Thanh Nguyen, The Park
For the last few days Thanh and I have been continuing to photograph and interview two diverse characters that we met at the park. Hip hop dancer and student, 15 yr old Chi and Badminton player and Tailor.
We met Chi after school at her home as she did he homework. We also got to meet her father who was over from Berlin. We keep finding out new things about Chi...yesterday we found out her family lives in Berlin, while she remains in Hanoi with her grandparents, so to study. Both Thanh and I were impressed by her maturity and felt it gave understanding to her independent attitude in someone her age.
We also met the tailor at his home to and went with him as he collected his grandson from school. A routine he does every friday. We walked right across the old town to get to the school. Weaving through schools traffic and wandering tourists.
It was lovely to spend more time with him. He has such a pleasent temprement and radiates a natural joy for life. While I was at the shop, I got my 1st fitting for a touser suite that I decided to order from his shop. I wanted to make the most of his skill as a tailor and I have always found it hard with my height to find well fitting suites in high street shops. It was amazing to watch the detail he and the semistress went to in doing the fitting.
Labels: Hazel Thompson The Park
Over the weekend, Thanh and I decided to go to Lenin Plaza and find out who goes to the park at first light. So at 6am on Saturday morning, it was still dark and we both met. Very quickly the sun rose and colour seemed to seep into the surroundings of the park.
Like the evening's, the park was a hub of activity. Exercise classes, joggers and badminton teams. We both felt drawn to the badminton...for me it was seeing quite old individuals play with such passion and flexibilty. We learned that the club meet there every morning.
We met this lovely old man, who wore a waistcoat when he played....we started chatting with him, then ended up following home. We had a wonderful morning meeting his wife, chatting about his life and drinking herbal tea.
So on Monday we returned at dawn and followed him through his day....
He is tailor and lives behind a tailor shop. We watched him cut out a suite from material.
It was amazing to watch, such skill. He did it by eye. While watching him drawing out the chalk lines, I couldn't help but see a visual similarity to the Badminton court lines.
Labels: Hazel Thompson The Park
Thắng "lí luận" là một trong những người đâu tiên đến và lập nghiệp với nghề buôn sứ tại bến sông Hồng, bạn này đã hơn 40, chuyên mua tận gốc, bán tận ngọn, thường xuyên đưa hàng lên Vĩnh Phúc, Hoà Bình bằng xe máy, từng làm KimĐồng cho một thiếu tướng quân đội nên khá hiểu biết, vì thế chúng tôi quyết định chọn bạn này đại diện cho những người nơi đây. Nhóm A tiếp xúc với bạn này hơi khó vì bạn đã va chạm quá nhiêu với chính quyền, với báo chí nên tỏ ra chưa cởi mở lắm. Hy vọng mấy hôm tới bạn Lâm của tôi sau một vài trận bia nữa sẽ thuyết phục được bạn này để làm việc cùng
