AFTERWARds (NO NAPALM)

Inspired by the work of Hong Kong based artist Ma Yujiang who Photoshops military harware out of found war photographs, this project challenges the photojournalistic and archival representation of people who are chemically captured and caught in the global narratives and public exhumations of war.

Applying emergent Ai image scrubbing and animation technologies, this process mines open source photographs of the War in Vietnam to remove and with-hold those human bodies, figures and shadows still being redistrubuted, redigested and recirculated 50 years after the ending of war.

These fictive empty landscapes speak of both loss and immense potential; of the absences and dissapearances that continue to haunt and linger amongst the rapid economic development and social revitalisation of these once desecrated sites.

Source images:

1)        Horst Fass, ‘Sun Breaks Through Dense Jungle,’ Binh Gia (Associated Press), 1965.

2)        Art Greenspon, ‘First Sergeant of A Company, 101st Airborne Division,’ Hue (Associated Press),1968.

3)        Horst Fass, ‘Women and Children Crouch in a Muddy Canal,’ Bao Trai (Associated Press), 1966.

4)        Kyōichi Sawada, ‘Flee to Safety,’ Quy Nhon (World Press Photo), 1965.

5)        Đặng Văn Phước,  ‘Soldiers helping a Civilian From Her Village to a Refugee Camp,’ (Associated Press), 1968.

6)        Bettman Archives, ‘United States Paratroopers,’ Bien Hoa (Getty images), 1965.

7)        Huỳnh Công (Nick) Út, ‘Grandmother Carrying Her burned Grandson,’ Trang Bang (Associated Press), 1972.

8)        Huỳnh Công (Nick) Út, ‘Napalm Girl,’ Trang Bang (Associated Press), 1972.

9)        Malcolm Browne, ‘Thích Quảng Đức immolation,’ Saigon (Associted Press), 1963.

10)  Eddie Adams, ‘South Vietnamese Gen. Nguyễn Ngọc Loan, executes suspected Viet Cong officer Nguyễn Văn Lém,’ Saigon (Associated Press), 1968. 

11)  Hubert Van Es, ‘Helicopter Evacuation,’ Saigon, (Getty Images), 1975.