Rock the boat: A scene from the documentary Jo Ha Kyu.   Standing tall: A photograph by Jamie Maxtone Graham, who is also a maker of independent films.

HA NOI — A new art installation at the Japan Foundation Centre explores issues related to the earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan last year.

Filmmaker Nguyen Trinh Thi and photographer Jamie Maxtone Graham are the artists behind the installation, and the husband -and -wife team have used their experiences during the disaster in Japan for inspiration.

The installation features a short documentary film and about 60 photographs by the couple, who arrived in Japan with their young daughter shortly after the disaster. While Thi did not plan to make the documentary before her trip, she said she always travelled with a camera. An exploration of a country still in shock after the devastation was therefore possible.

Entitled Jo Ha Kyu, the documentary is a strange experiment beginning with images of sleeping people in a subway station. For 10 minutes it's difficult to find any meaning in the images, as they move so quickly, mixing scenes of modern life from Japan.

"I made this work because I like to experiment with moving images, to see how one can tell stories or express oneself in different ways," said Thi. "The city gave me certain impressions and feelings, but there were also other emotions and events that were happening in the background of my personal experience that had little to do with Tokyo."

Thi said she wanted to put all of these thoughts into her work making it like a time capsule, a recorded memory. "In a way, the piece is about the conflict and co-existence of the concrete and abstract worlds," she said.

Seeing the abstract moving images of Tokyo by Thi as well as photographs of ordinary Japanese people by Graham gives audiences a different view of Tokyo.

Sixty photographs by Graham raise some of the same themes as his wife's documentary. "I was interested in the way this opportunity might affect my working process, the way in which what I was seeing might influence how I would see it," said Graham.

A professional photographer with more than 20 years in commercial and narrative cinematography, Graham's works range from independent to mainstream feature films, episodic television and advertising.

Thi is a Ha Noi-based independent documentary filmmaker and video artist. She studied journalism and photography at the University of Iowa and International Studies and ethnographic film at University of California, San Diego.

Her documentary and experimental films have been screened at festivals and art exhibitions across Asia, Europe, and the US. Thi founded the Ha Noi DocLab, a centre for documentary filmmaking and video art in Ha Noi, in 2009.

The installation will run until May 24 at 27 Quang Trung Street, Ha Noi. — VNS