Vo An Khanh - Preserving Vietnamese History Through War Photography

The late photographer Vo An Khanh was born in 1936 in Bac Lieu province, Vietnam. Between 1960s and 1970s, he traveled with a guerrilla unit to document the front line of the Vietnamese resistance force in the Ca Mau region. He also managed the Photography Department of the local revolutionary cause and documented events related to frontline music and dance events.

Between the years 1962 and 1975, Vo An Khanh staged a photographic exhibition within mangrove forests. His two well-known photographs, ‘Mobile Military Medical Clinic’ and ‘Extra-curriculum Political Science Class,’ were included in this traveling show, which Vo An Khanh himself developed on the spot using natural light.

This giant in Vietnamese photography passed away in 2023 but his spirit remained the timeless, same as his photography.

His “Vietnam in my heart” has over 200 pages with hundreds of valuable photos. Vo An Khanh's photo named Que toi thoi chien (My hometown during the war) is also one of the most valuable documentary photo albums recording the war in the southernmost of Vietnam (Bac Lieu - Ca Mau).

His famous photo 'Mobile Military Medical Clinic' taken in September 1970, records the scene of Vietnamese military doctors standing in the water, performing surgery on a injured soldier lying on a stretch. The operating room is under a mosquito-netting tent in the middle of a swamp.

Thirty years later, the photo was on the front page of The New York Times, showing the Vietnam war from a different perspective. This photo was also among 180 photos displayed in an exhibition at the International Center of Photography in the US in March 2002.

Khanh's captures of Ca Mau people’s daily life received great attention from the international press. A photograph of Khanh called "Ba noi mu" (Blind grandmother) moved many people, as it demonstrated the intimacy of a traditional Vietnamese family. The photographer captured a moment when a grandson led his blind grandmother over a narrow monkey bridge. The photo won the International photography competition held in Germany in 1982. Fishing, another work of Khanh, capturing a teenager catching fish, won third prize in a photo contest organized by UNESCO.

Mobile Military Medical Clinic

Extra Curriculum Political Science Class

Workers from the printing factory of Ca Mau province doing morning exercises

Farewell my enlisted brother — a dance piece by students at the music and dance school, performed during the closing ceremony

Students from Kinh Hang hamlet, Khanh Hung commune, Tran Van Thai district, Ca Mau, seated on makeshift wooden boards which are later removed once the class is over, leaving no traces behind

Local congress establishing the committee for the national liberation front in Ca Mau province—at Giap Nuoc crossroads

Music and dance class organized by the southwestern region’s propaganda department in U Minh forest

Making the Nam Can mangrove forest green again after the Americans sprayed toxic chemicals

On the night of June 3, 1974, Viet Cong obliterated Cai Ran station and took control of the region

Blind grandmother

In early June 2020, an exhibition named Masked Force was held in San Art - a gallery for Contemporary arts in Ho Chi Minh City. The exhibition featured Vo An Khanh’s photographs of the revolutionary forces in the Mekong delta taken from 1961 to 1974. This is the first solo exhibition of Khanh’s work at San Art since a group exhibition a decade ago. Despite taking place in a different context, the show retained the spirit of preserving and transforming wartime memories into new stories.

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