An-My Lê in "Protest" - Season 4 - "Art in the Twenty-First Century" | Art21

An-My Lê:
I think I had very conflicted ideas about

the military.

It was something that drew me

but at the same time it was something that
was repellent

because of you know what had happened in Vietnam.

I'm completely fascinated by the military structure.

So the idea of studying the preparation of
war became very interesting.

I think on my own I, I don't think I would ever
gain access to the military

and learn about all these things.

And so the camera is a pretext.

My camera's wood.

It's an old Deardorff.

It's a substantial and cumbersome camera.

Because it's so cumbersome it makes me make
a particular type of picture.

I think it forces me to resolve questions.

So for example, photographing military exercises,

I'm interested in what I have to go through
to make it work.

And I think it forces me to make a particular
type of picture.

Without really being conscious about it,

I think I've always tried to understand what
is the meaning of war

and what does it really mean to live through
times of turbulence like that,

and I think a lot of those questions sort
of fuel my work.

When I first made the pictures in Vietnam,

I was not at all ready to even deal with the war.

War was part of life for us.

And I've gone to school as a seven year-old
and arriving

and finding the front gate of my school in smoke,

because a mortar had just fallen there you
know at 5:30 in the morning.

So it...it's something that we take with a stride.

I think it was affecting our parents a lot more.

As soon as I got to Vietnam,

I realized that I was not so interested in
the specific psychology of each person,

but I was more interested in the activities,

what they do and how that activity is splayed
onto the landscape.

It's that beauty that I wanted to embrace
in my work.

For me, being able to go back to Vietnam and
make those pictures

was a way to reconnect with a homeland or
this idea of what a homeland is.

You know when you live in exile, things like
smell and memories,

stories you hear from your childhood,

all those things take on such importance,

things that really connect you to the land.

And unfortunately pictures don't smell,

but if I could do that you know it would be
about smells as well.

I think each body of work grows out of the
next one

because I think you resolve something and
then you feel ready,

to move on, to tackle another issue.

And certainly, after Vietnam it was obvious
that I had not tackled the issue of war.

Working with the re-enactors just became such
an opportunity.

John Pilson:
The first time she went down,

she went down by herself and I guess I was not....

That was...that was one time, on all the things
she's done,

that was like the one time I didn't....

I was just concerned, you know,

cause she didn't know anything about these guys

and she found them on the Internet.

And the whole idea of she's going down to
go out into the woods for a weekend with a bunch…

bunch of, kind of paramilitary guys.

An-My Lê:
Working with the re-enactors was very difficult

because they had their own activity

and I needed to interrupt them,

to set up my own pictures.

And at one point there was this issue of well,

should I completely direct them?

Should I hire them?

Should I hire actors?

And uh, I'm...I'm really glad that I,

I didn't because I think not having complete
control was…

was very interesting.

I think it created these moments of uncertainty.

Black and white was always my choice

because of my interest in the drawings of things.

In this picture for example, you know,

it was the drawing of the branches coming
down, the drawing of the creek.

We added the smoke.

Uhm, you know this one Special Force guy or
re-enactor hiding behind this.

So it was very clear in my mind what the drawing
of the landscape would be.

In color it's not so clear I think in terms of space

and then it would be about the space that's
in between the green and uh,

the actual ridge here.

I think in black and white I would have thought of...

I think I would have made a slightly different picture.

I'm not sure how to explain it.

I think this was a black and white picture
that I made in color,

because I was interested in all the lines
here and the,

the ladder effect here of the ridge.

And I think it was only afterwards that I
noticed how beautiful the gradation of greens

was

from the bottom to the top.

I think of myself as a landscape photographer.

I think my main goal is to try to photograph
landscape in such a way

so that history could be suggested through
the landscape,

whether industrial history or my personal
history.

I try to stay away from light that's too dramatic.

And I try not to use light too much as some
kind of dramatic counterpoint.

I think I'd rather have something else--at
that element of drama.

And I was very distraught when the war started
in March of 2003

and I felt my heart going out for the soldiers,

the young men and women who were being sent to Iraq.

My immediate impulse was to go to Iraq.

And when that did not work out

and I saw pictures of marines training in
Twenty-nine Palms, I thought,

well Twenty-nine Palms could be a stand-in for Iraq.

And why not.

When I'm working with the military, I still
think of landscape.

Scale is also important to me because it shows
how insignificant we are

and especially with the military,

no matter how advanced, how hard we work,

it's still about transporting, you know,

all of these incredible new tanks across vast
landscapes.

That's what you're up against and…

and it's about really trying to capture that.

And it's about also really trying to make
sense of it

and that's why it's important to have an activity.

And I think I immediately realized that the
kind of work that I make is not the standard,

traditional, political work.

You know it's not agitprop.

And I think war is very complicated, it's
not black and white.

But at the same time, what it is meant to
do is...is just horrible.

And I think that's why the work seems ambiguous
and it's...it's meant to be.

I am not categorically against war, but I think
we need to, you know,

try to avoid it as much as possible.