Visitors explore a new exhibition space at the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City. Photo: Supplied
The new exhibition spaces opened on Monday, coinciding with the International Day of Peace, and feature three themes: Reminiscence, Agent Orange, and Vietnam: War and Peace.
The revamp is the museum’s most extensive in more than 20 years of displaying three major photographic collections donated by international photographers.
The collections feature the works of British photographer Tim Page, German photographer Horst Faas, and Japanese photographers Nakamura Goro and Ishikawa Bunyo.
Lam Ngo Hoang Anh, deputy director in charge of the War Remnants Museum, said the three collections had, over the past two decades, become not only valuable assets of the museum but also part of the world’s shared memory of the war.
The photographers came from different countries and backgrounds, but their work shared a common purpose.
“They used their lenses to stand on the side of truth and human suffering,” Anh said.
The redesigned spaces also pay tribute to courageous wartime correspondents who risked and, in some cases, lost their lives while documenting the conflict.
The displays seek to remind visitors of the devastation caused by war and the value of peace for present and future generations.
The exhibition design draws on the imagery of a darkroom and a camera lens, symbolizing darkness giving way to the light of truth.
Archival photographs have been restored and printed on high-quality laminating materials designed for durability and visual clarity.
Visitors can also explore the collections through interactive touchscreens, while the arrangement of photographs and lighting is intended to create a more immersive and emotionally engaging experience.
The new exhibition space offers visitors an interactive experience. Photo: Supplied
One section of the new exhibition features an interactive experience where visitors can try being a war correspondent, stepping into the role of a wartime photographer to gain a closer sense of the courage required to document the conflict from the front lines.
The museum also received two wartime artifacts donated by former political prisoner Le Tu Cam.
One is an embroidered portrait of President Ho Chi Minh, created by Pham Van Con, a former political prisoner held at Con Dao prison.
The other is a notebook titled 'I lived and triumphed in the American-puppet regime's prison from 1955 to 1968,' documenting torture that Con witnessed during his imprisonment.
Cam had preserved both artifacts for many years before donating them to the museum.
The three exhibitions, Reminiscence, Agent Orange, and Vietnam: War and Peace, will be on permanent display at the War Remnants Museum from September 21.
According to organizers, Reminiscence was compiled over four years by wartime correspondents Tim Page of Britain and Horst Faas of Germany.
It brings together photographs by more than 130 international and Vietnamese journalists who were killed or went missing while covering the wars in Indochina.
The collection was donated by the people of Kentucky in the United States to the people of Vietnam as a message of 'hope, healing and history.'
Agent Orange follows Japanese photographer Nakamura Goro’s long-term documentation of the effects of the defoliant used extensively by U.S. forces during the war, and his efforts to convey the experiences of its victims.
Vietnam: War and Peace features more than 100 archival photographs by Japanese wartime photographer Bunyo, offering a broad perspective on the Vietnamese people's struggle for survival through decades of war.
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