In order to make a close connection between the commemorative activities in both countries, I displaced the left wing of the Vietnam Veteran Memorial with a montage of pictures of the Vietnamese on April 30th, the 25th anniversary of the Vietnam War. These picture were taken by an anonymous photographer, and there are 75 in total. I chose more than 40 pictures for my presentation, and put them together in a way that they overlap and touch with each other without a focus but clearly recognizable. The main principle for the arrangement is to present a striking contrast among people's different reactions to this national celebration. Such as one picture catching a moment that a middle-age soldier looks at the camera with tears in his eyes. He wears a number of honors and medals on the left chest of his uniform and stands in the mourning team. This picture is surrounded by some other events, including a cemetery with an old Vietnam woman walking through the gravestones, a pretty little girl smiling with a small American flag on her left face and the former South Vietnam flag on the right, a young vietnamese man smiling for something interesting, a tank marching in front of a big portrait of the former Chairman Ho Chi Minh, and a young girl making a face with the relics of a tank in a historic site. Arrangement like this aims at highlighting the diverse perspectives toward the war in the Vietnamese society after 25 years wartime memory reconstruction as a result of the political negotiation and economic development between the two countries.
The other part of my picture is the right wing of the Vietnam Veteran Memorial in Washington D.C. The original picture is from the website http://thewall-usa.com/ and it is a beautiful three dimensional image. By dragging the mouse toward different directions, the full extent of the Memorial is vividly demonstrated, such as the blue sky on the top, and the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial on each side. Unfortunately, the half wall I use is no long three dimensional, but a regular picture because of my awkward master of the image processing. This silent and black marble wall here is still to accent the theme of the Memorial as a reconciliation and healing symbol for the American veterans, as well as the whole society which was divided unprecedentedly by the war. Moreover, in contrast to the national celebration in Vietnam on its left, the wall also implies the different way the United States implements to commemorate the war and recover from it, and reveals the contents the Memorial intendedly omits from its memory.
When modifying the pictures, I was a little worried that it might offend some people on both sides because of my manipulating method, such as the pretty little girl I mentioned before. This picture and other two pictures I put in the montage, an old Vietnamese veteran squatting down on a lawn holding the flags of the United States and the former South Vietnam, and the three honor guards wearing the uniforms with the former South Vietnam flag on their right arms, were taken at a ceremony in Washington D. C. for commemorating the former South Vietnam that was defeated by the North Vietnam during the war. Although my purpose of using these pictures is to stress my point that it also functions as a healing and reconciliation process for the veterans once working for the former South Vietnam government just as the Memorial does, it might be unacceptable and intolerable for some people in Vietnam. Similarly, the way of juxtaposing the pictures of celebrating the victory in Vietnam with the names of the deceased soldiers in the Memorial may also hurt some American veterans' feelings. Based on this consideration, I also made preparations for some possible questions my classmates and professor might ask, like where do you plan to put this picture, and my answer would be "my bedroom". But surprisingly, they only pointed out one questionable picture. It is John McCain, American president candidate in 2009, standing under the plaster sculpture of Ho Chi Minh when he paid a visit to Vietnam during the anniversary. I really like the advice that finding another figure who supports the Memorial is a better way to demolish the conflicts between the montage and the Memorial. Maybe because I am an international student, my classmates and Prof. Vance tolerated my project and it went much better than I had expected. Did I expect some controversial issues it brought about? Kind of!
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