Binh Danh's Exhibit

Binh Danh’s exhibit showcases the eternal consequences of war. Although the Vietnam War ended in 1975, Binh Danh’s pictures allow the viewer to transcend time and evoke a sense of reality and thought that otherwise might have been ignored. Binh Danh goes beyond the standard, yearbook style of printing photographs of war casualties by imprinting images of the lost lives onto foliage. These imprinted images are “symbolic of the jungle itself, bearing witness to scars of war that remain in the landscape” . Binh Danh’s work displays the scars embedded not only in the landscape, but also in the hearts and minds of all those affected by the war and ultimately all those who come to view his work. These scars force the viewer to question ones own ideas about the Vietnam War and the current war in Iraq. Personally, I am vehemently opposed to both, the Vietnam War and, the present War in Iraq. Thus, Binh Danh’s exhibit reinforced my own anti war sentiments. Allowing me to view the images of real people, induced my own sense of actuality, “Such images are indeed able to usurp reality because first of all a photograph is not only an image (as a painting is an image), an interpretation of the real; it is also a trace, something directly stenciled off the real, like a footprint or a death mask” . As Susan Sontag explains, photographs are a piece of the real. Binh Danh’s pictures are traces of lives lost, “Photographic images are pieces of evidence in an ongoing biography or history. And one photograph, unlike one painting, implies that there will be others”. Looking at these photos, one is forced to grasp the enormity of what they represent. These were everyday people, such as you or I, who were killed in the jungle of war, and whose eternal souls are now on display for others to view. Although Binh Danh’s exhibit is meant to be impartial about the war, it invokes thought and strong opinions of both sides of the spectrum.