Long time no see: A visual exchange between two artists and the Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange

Andrea Orejarena and Caleb Stein gave their collaborators management over their narrative, culminating in a multi-disciplinary physique of work that displays on questions of authorship

Agent Orange is a robust herbicide that was sprayed by the US navy throughout forests and crops throughout the Vietnam conflict. The first intention was to destroy vegetation, however the long-term penalties of publicity had been way more sinister. Containing the lethal chemical dioxin, publicity to Agent Orange was later confirmed to trigger critical well being points – together with most cancers, start defects, rashes, and extreme psychological and neurological issues. 

This affected US troops too. Returning residence after the conflict, they started to file claims, and in 1984, 1000’s of US veterans and their households gained a $180 million lawsuit towards the chemical compounds’ producers. Nevertheless in Vietnam – the place an estimated three million people have been affected, together with 150,000 kids born with start defects – no funding has been supplied to reconcile its affect. 

In 1988, in a private mission of reparation, US veteran George Mizo – who handed away in 2002 attributable to issues associated to Agent Orange – initiated plans for a residential facility for Vietnamese victims of the chemical warfare. Positioned on the outskirts of Hanoi, Làng Hữu Nghị (Friendship Village) is an schooling, well being, and rehabilitation centre with house to take care of as much as 250 kids and 100 adults. 

Multimedia artists Andrea Orejarena and Caleb Stein first visited Làng Hữu Nghị in 2015. The journey was half of a year overseas program supplied by Vassar School in New York, the place they had been finding out at the time. The artist-duo had been initially hesitant,  coming from America. Not solely as a result of of the nation’s function in the conflict, but in addition the scrutiny surrounding photographers who swoop into international international locations and impose their very own agenda. However as they obtained to know the residents – sharing teas, late-night drinks, and taking part in video games – they started to understand how narratives surrounding the conflict had been skewed. “The loopy factor was once we expressed our preliminary hesitation to them, they stated: ‘Effectively, why would you are feeling that means? We gained the conflict.’ It simply flipped our complete understanding of that battle on its head,” says Stein. “The narrative we’re consuming in the US, and in the West usually, is so slanted. The conflict continues to be fought, after it’s technically completed, by who tells the story with the largest microphone.”

Orejarena and Stein grew to become hyper conscious of the gaps of their schooling. The fact of how and the place they’d been fed details about the conflict – principally from Hollywood’s “manicured mythologies” – grew to become strikingly clear. Again in the US, they started to conceptualise a challenge that might centre round a collaboration and exchange, one that might give the victims of Agent Orange management over their very own narrative. In early 2018, they returned to Làng Hữu Nghị and spent the subsequent 18 months engaged on a collaborative physique of work that might ultimately turn into Long Time No See: a multimedia challenge and now ebook, printed by Jiazazhi. 

“We wished to be delicate to the energy dynamic of being the ones with the camera,” says Orejarena. Each aesthetic selection in the challenge was made in collaboration with their individuals. “We created the conceptual spine… however we knew we couldn’t provide you with any idea for the bodily items till we obtained to Vietnam.” 

The artists guided their collaborators in direction of totally different mediums of expression – from images and movie to portray and sculpture. They labored with two teams: the conflict veterans, and a youthful technology of residents. Whereas the youthful technology leaned into bodily acts of mark-making, the veterans sought to visualise ideas regarding their expertise of the conflict by means of movie. One man, for instance, was stationed on a mountain as an evening guard. He remembers being exhausted; all he wished to do was sleep. With the assist of an animator, ​​Orejarena and Stein introduced this imaginative and prescient to life. The ensuing video exhibits the veteran napping amongst the clouds, enveloped by the protecting cradle of a mushy fog. Others are superimposed into the jungle, or inside an anti-war protest in Washington. These video items are threaded collectively in a three-channel set up, with stills re-printed in the ebook. 

Partaking on this degree of collaboration meant the artists relinquished the management they’d often have over the aesthetic output of their work. “It was one of the few moments I’ve been in a position to withstand having expectations in my life,” says Stein. They had been motivated by a quote from the thinker Édouard Glissant – “I can change, by means of exchange” – “there’s loads of love in an announcement like that,” Stein displays. “We had been each very drawn to that… We’re each drawn to work that’s comprised of a spot of love.”

The collaboration didn’t finish when the artists left the nation both. “What we’ve observed is that there’s an older technology of documentary filmmakers and photographers who’ve engaged with this query of energy dynamics. However in the end, they preserve full authorship,” says Stein. “We thought, ‘it’s important to put your cash the place your mouth is’.” If their gallery makes a sale, or in the event that they win a grant, a 3rd of the cash will at all times return to the individuals in Vietnam. 

Long time no see has employed a delicate and democratic method to storytelling, from its conception, by means of its execution, and now in its presentation. This degree of care and connection is superbly mirrored in the challenge’s title. One of the many side-effects of publicity to Agent Orange is listening to loss, and six out of the seven youthful individuals had been deaf. In an effort to talk with them, Orejarena and Stein realized Vietnamese signal language. The title of the challenge is impressed by the signal language translation for ‘lengthy time no see’. “It registers like a sleek dance,” says Orejarena. One arm is stretched out to the aspect, whereas the different reaches for it in a fist, which then slides throughout the arm, the chest, and makes its means all the means throughout the physique, till it releases at the aspect of the physique. “A lot of the communication was a visual exchange,” Stein displays. “And that’s what was so pretty. It transcends language.” 

Long Time No See is printed by Jiazazhi.