Ha Noi by German photographer Peter Bialobrzeski.

It’s a surprising kaleidoscope of Asian megacities, captured in 96 pics by 26 photographers from six cities: Jakarta, Ha Noi, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Manila and Singapore.

Ngo Xuan Phu’s works, entitled Discovering Van Gogh in Viet Nam, include five photos of Vietnamese farmers.

Phu pays tribute to the way Van Gogh looked at the world by transferring Van Gogh’s paintings into photographs.

Dimensions by Lim Hui Xian Janice.

“I took these photos when I was doing my Master of Art,” Phu says. “Van Gogh’s paintings about Dutch farmers in the 18th century inspired me a lot. The scenes are very familiar to Vietnamese farmers, but it no longer exists in the Netherlands.”

The portraits were taken in fields with backgrounds of industrial zones.

“The world is changing very quickly,” Phu asks. “How long will the simple, rural life of farmers and craftsmen be around, before urban life takes over?

“In my photographs I want to conserve the observations and spirit of Van Gogh and try to evoke the same emotions as Van Gogh does with his painting.”

Phu also hopes that through his photographs viewers will understand the lives of Vietnamese farmers, since he believes their way of life will eventually disappear, as it has mostly done in the Netherlands.

Phu was the only Vietnamese photographer to attend the exhibition opening ceremony in Jakarta, Indonesia, in June last year.

Nguyen Viet Hung’s Urban Wind and Dam Duc Vu’s Home Sweet Home snap rural people migrating to the city to make a living.

Magazine reporter Hung considers photography as a communication tool for photographers to express their views on the things around them. He takes shots and enjoys it as an amazing journey which, unfortunately, sometimes happens not to be in wonderland.

Ha Noi hustle

Three photos of Urban Wind depict more people and more vehicles. Ha Noi is a chain of non-stop and hurried movements on the streets. The photos of the traffic on bridges near Ha Noi show you the rush of people getting to and from the city.

Vu’s Home Sweet Home snaps the place of workers building a new city. They will disappear when the work is finished. People will move into a modern new city; life is fast and life is beautiful, said Vu.

With regional photographers will be German photographer Peter Bialobrzeski. He selected six photos for the exhibition, one from each city he visited in last two years. His photo Ha Noi was taken at the cross-roads of Nga Tu So in the west of the capital.

These images will be part of a larger project, The Raw and the Cooked, which will look at the structures of changing cities from Dubai to Jakarta. The project will be published as a book next year.

Bialobrzeski travelled through Southeast Asia, combining his own photographic investigations into urban nature with workshops for selected photographers in the six foremost cities of the region.

The workshops aimed to develop the creative potential of the participants. Their task was to take a series of photographs about hidden and unfamiliar aspects of their cities. The aim was to reflect each photographer’s personality through their own distinctive art work.

The workshop series was organised by the Goethe Institute Jakarta with the help of institute’s offices in Bangkok, Ha Noi, Kuala Lumpur, Manila, Singapore and local partners.

Mapping Invisible Cities has been held in Indonesia, Singapore, Philippines and Bangkok. After Ha Noi it will move to Malaysia.

“The exhibition is the second attempt to bring together young photographers from the region and to promote a common exploration of the urban subject,” said Franz Xaver Augustin, regional director of the Goethe Institute in Southeast Asia.

“This is in line with the intentions of the institute, not only to encourage an exchange with Europe but also to utilise the network of centres to promote creative interaction among the young artists of the region.”

The exhibition will run until March 23 at 56-58 Nguyen Thai Hoc Street, Ha Noi.

VietNamNet/VNS