After more than seven years, Hien Lam Duc threads together with a certain grace his childhood memories. After having paced the planet and shown his despair and his humanitarian combat, he has evolved into a photographer of timelessness, cradled by the powerful path of the Mekong, the legendary river that has watched him grow up. He has explored it’s a thousand and one meanderings, across four-thousand, two hundred kilometres, between the Himalayas and Viet Nam, letting himself be carried by his fascination and the memories of his own life.
On the banks of his mother-river, he has known the joys of childhood, his days at the monastery school, but also clandestine journeys, and the subsequent discomfort of refugee camps before exile.
His work à rebours celebrates the serene beauty of the landscapes and the dignity of the many people of the river.
Climbing up the path of the Mékong and that of his own story, the exiled photographer has put together an inspirational piece of work that lies somewhere between his poetic wanderings and a documentary, with the thread of water as the only guide to follow.
2006: "Portraits-Mékong", Ethnographic Museum, Hanoi, Vietnam "Portraits-Mékong", Hue Festival, Vietnam 2005: "Le Mékong à hauteur d’eau", Chroniques nomades, Honfleur, France 2002-2003: "Les gens d'Irak", Vu Gallery, Paris
