HA NOI — An exhibition of 90 photographs taken by 16 young people with disabilities from the central province of Thanh Hoa is on tour through 13 German cities. The Face-to-Face exhibition, a community photography project with members of various self-help groups for the disabled around the province, was shown at the Goethe Institute in Ha Noi last year and in Thanh Hoa to great fanfare.
It was begun in the summer of 2008 with assistance from the German Development Service (DED) and Paul Zetter of Ensemble Creative and Development, with additional support from Germany's Schmitz Foundation.
The project aimed to teach new creative skills to disabled young people and a means to express and their viewpoints more effectively to new and wider audiences.
Over the course of five months, 16 young adults living with disabilities, from urban and rural areas in Thanh Hoa, shared eight digital cameras and took over 8,000 photographs in their communities.
At the same time, workshops were held in which participants discussed and shared their pictures with each other, developing visual literacy and photographic skills.
At the end of the project, 90 photographs were chosen to form an exhibition, curated by James Maxtone-Graham.
In addition to the exhibition, a documentary was produced. Entitled Still Life Moving, the film follows the life of a young woman named Huong as she participated in the Face-to-Face community photography project.
Coinciding with celebrations of 35 years of diplomatic relations between Viet Nam and Germany, the exhibition will tour Germany through March 2011. — VNS