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Background information
"Swiss photographer Ernst SPYCHER and Swiss writer Christoph Braendle traveled through Vietnam in November 2004 to visit sites of the war that ended exactly thirty years ago. They found a country whose wounds seem to have healed, but whose scars are hidden beneath the rice paddies. And they found a world where the normality of everyday life is the only way forward. It takes a second and third look to discover the still-present traces of the terrible events of the war and the gaps that still exist.
Content
The photographs by Ernst SPYCHER in the photo volume 'Metapher Vietnam. Erinnerungen an die Gegenwart' (Metaphor Vietnam. Memories of the Present) document painful insights with touching sympathy that characterizes his work. He portrays war participants, photographs former war sites that are still symbols of horrific crimes of war, such as Keh San, Vinh Moc, the Ho Chi Minh Way or, for example, the 17th parallel, and, of course, My Lai. At the same time, he contrasts these images with those of daily life in Vietnam today. Christoph Braendle's narrative describes the story of two friends, which begins in the time of the protests against the occupation of Vietnam by the USA, further describes their adventurous travels in Europe, America and Africa, and reaches its climax in Vietnam, where the two realize that their memories are nothing but part of the present." (© Edition Fotohof, 2005)