The 4,200-kilometer journey in photos from the lower Kowloon to the upper Tibet

The French Institute in Hanoi (24 Trang Tien, Hanoi) has just opened a photo exhibition ‘Mekong – A tale of two banks’ by photographer Lam Duc Hien.
The series of photos captures the lives of communities living along the Mekong River, as well as a journey to find the roots of the French-Vietnamese photographer.

Works on display in the exhibition Lam Duc Hien makes the 4,200km journey along the Mekong River, from the bustling, life-filled tropical lower reaches of the Mekong Delta to upstream Tibet where snow is white all year round. This cross-continental journey has a special meaning to him – the French-Vietnamese photographer was born and raised on the banks of the Mekong River in Laos, affectionately known as the Mother River. In the series of pictorial narratives, individual memories blend with the collective memories of people who live by and rely on the river. Here, the Mekong River is both a boundary and a link between lands, cultures and peoples. Lam Duc Hien was born in 1966 on the banks of the Mekong River, which flows through the town of Pakse in the south of Laos. He arrived in France in 1977 after living for two years in a refugee camp in Thailand. Lam Duc Hien has documented the aftermath of the greatest conflicts of the 20th and 21st centuries in many countries around the world, including Romania, Russia, Bosnia, Chechnya, Rwanda, South Sudan and, most significantly, Iraq, where he engaged for more than 25 years. He has won many photography awards, including prestigious awards such as Leica Award, Great European Award of Vevey City, World Press Photo, etc. Lam Duc Hien is a member of Agence VU’ photo agency. The exhibition is open until June 11, 2021.