By Carô Gervay
Intro
In this piece I set the scene by considering some aspects of the relationship between Vietnam, its diaspora and photography. I then reflect on an artistic intervention which takes as its starting point the unfinished history of 204 Vietnamese children brought to Livø, an island in Denmark in 1975. Its title: Sensitive Matter1. My reflections draw from a practice that has developed over the past 15 years through my work as a freelance photographer / artist, workshop facilitator and co-director of a community darkroom, exploring the potential of analogue photography to open up spaces of connection, repair and critical action.
Vietnam and photography
Many artists from Vietnam and the diaspora have commented on the media’s influence on our communities. In the curatorial note of the exhibition Ký Ức Lan Toả A Radial System2, Minh Nguyễn reminds us:
“By 1967, hundreds of accredited photographers from various nations were stationed in Vietnam. (…) The volume of images was so immense that Associated Press built Saigon’s first private satellite station solely for transmitting photographs, while commercial airlines operated daily flights to transport film to Tokyo laboratories. Each week, an estimated 80000 photographs emerged from the conflict”.
This has led them to revisit historical moments on their own terms. To name just a couple, Jacqueline Hoàng Nguyễn created a project about vernacular photography by POC in Canada3; while Dinh Q Lê was known for his sculptural work made of photos left behind during the war4. Vietnamese-Canadian scholar Thy Phu refers to those millions of family photographs later on sold by the kilo at Saigonese markets, as “orphan images”5. The collective Matca6, based in Hanoi, have undertaken the task of critically bringing together fragments of that photographic history, by prioritising the work of Vietnamese nationals.
Sensitive Matter : a photographic intervention7
The context
On 30 April 1975, 204 Vietnamese children were brought to Livø, an island in the northwest of Jutland, Denmark. They arrived in the wake of the island’s fraught history as a state-run custodial institution for men deemed ‘socially unfit’, marking a continuation of Livø’s role as a site of exclusion and control. (…) Their arrival constituted the largest migration of non-European refugees to Denmark at the time, leaving the Danish state unprepared and, at first, unwilling to offer protection. (…) In a visual dialogue between the landscape and archival material, Gervay traces the fragments of their story through photographs kindly offered by Alpha Dieu8, who documented his peers during their return visit to Livø and the surrounding area in 19779.
Encountering photographs
My installation is an invitation to remember a moment in time. When I first learnt about the Drengene fra Saigon ( boys from Saigon10), I came across an article11 featuring 3 black & white photographs that caught my attention. With the help of an interpreter, I started a conversation with the photographer, who was 18 years old at the time. Some photographs had been taken by Danish photojournalists, but those 3 were of a very different tone. They had an intimacy to them, and I could really feel that someone had wanted to hold onto those moments.
What can starting a dialogue between 2 photographers from different generations be an opportunity for?
Sensitivity in creative and social approaches
The term “sensitive” refers to the quality of the material I work with: silver gelatine paper, cyanotype chemistry. Photographers are now more informed on the ecological damage caused by the photographic industry; I have recently used less toxic printing techniques. Nuances of what can be seen or not are achieved through several strategies: an interplay between positive and negative, changes in size, repetition of details, inclusion of non-developed prints. The paper is still reacting to sunlight and other elements, so the images keep changing. Some cyanotypes were toned with organic matter such as twigs, leaves and petals carefully collected in the area.
The collaborative opening event of Sensitive Matter organised by lím collective12 included a children’s rights workshop for local families, followed by an excursion to Rønbjerg Harbour and the island of Livø. Working site-specifically through engaging with the current ecology of Livø was important to me, especially because photographs often decontextualise situations.
How does the landscape witness and remember us?
Sharing this work outside of its context
A friend told me about Whose Knowledge? and in April 2025 I was fortunate to take part in their Liberatory Archives and Memory meeting in Brighton. There, our conversations inspired me to think further about our unique contexts and connected strategies. Writing this piece makes me wonder once more: what can a cross-diasporic simple act of remembrance move? Some photographic practices deliberately move away from shooting, representing and fixing decontextualised truths. My commitment is to bring several layers of engagement between memory, people and the land, through intimate, critical and creative ways.
List Captions:
1_ One of the collages presented in a notice board as part of the Sensitive Matter installation on Livø island. Photo: Carô Gervay, May 2025
2_Getting closer, the same collage. Photo: Carô Gervay, May 2025
3_Poster of the exhibition Sensitive Matter, Vietnamese + English version.
4_Photographing a digitally printed paper negative from a photograph taken by Alpha Dieu in 1977. The sun beams enter the frame which in turn helps the window reflect my yellow shirt and red darkroom apron. Photo: Carô Gervay, May 2025.
5_The collaborative opening event of Sensitive Matter included a picnic on the island. Photo: Reasat Jyoti, May 2025.
6_The other side of the shed on Livø island features cyanotype prints of Alpha Dieu’s photographs with large blue borders. They are among information boards and signs relating to the activities on the island. A piece of cyanotyped silk from Vietnam bears traces of local seaweed. Photo: Carô Gervay, May 2025.
Carô Gervay lives in London where she is a co-director of the Gate (community) Darkroom. She is doing a practice-based PhD at City St George’s University, deepening her creative and collective memory work through engaging with family photographs in the Vietnamese diaspora (France/UK). www.carolinegervay.com
- Sensitive Matter is a photographic installation by Carô Gervay. It is organised by lím collective, curated by Qwin Werle & Bella Normark with graphic design by Atakan Kara and Rikke Ehlers Nilsson, and generously supported by Statens Kunstfond, Region Nord, and Vesthimmerlands Kommune, Fjord Tours og Livø Feriecenter. lím collective is an experimental platform in Northern Jutland, Denmark, dedicated to alliances between contemporary artistic practice, health, and care.
- Ký Ức Lan Toả A Radial System is an exhibition that took place at Dogma Gallery, Hồ Chí Minh City 28/02/25 – 12/06/25 in partnership with “Sensing Photography : Vietnam and Vectors of Global Photography”, a symposium organised by Trâm Lương (Fulbright University Vietnam) and Jacqueline Hoàng Nguyễn (Konstfack & KTH Royal Institute of Technology
- “The Making of An Archive (2014-ongoing) records the everyday life by Canadian immigrants and amateur photographers in order to address an absence of representation in the official narrative of multiculturalism of Canada as well as explore how to build a community based archive”: https://cargocollective.com/jacquelinehoangnguyen/The-Making-of-an-Archive
- http://www.ricegallery.org/dinh-q-le
- Thy Phu, Warring Visions, Photography and Vietnam, Duke Press University, 2021
- https://matca.vn/en/
- Sensitive Matter, 01/06/2025-15/08/2025, is a photographic installation by Carô Gervay. It was programmed by lím collective, curated by Qwin Werle & Bella Normark with graphic design by Atakan Kara and Rikke Ehlers Nilsson, and generously supported by Statens Kunstfond, Region Nord, and Vesthimmerlands Kommune, Fjord Tours og Livø Feriecenter.
- More photographs taken by Alpha Dieu can be seen at Immigrantmuseet (Migration Museum of Denmark), in Farum.
- Curatorial text by Qwin Werle & Bella Normark.
- Title of the documentary made in 1997 by the Danish public-service radio and television broadcasting company DR: https://www.danskkulturarv.dk/dr/dr-dokumentar-drengene-fra-saigon/
- https://www.tv2east.dk/slagelse/henning-becker-er-doed-han-reddede-vores-liv
- The collaborative opening event was realised in collaboration with the local creative writing group “Open Your Window” run by Murshida Zaman and Reasat Jyoti; and teacher and children rights advocate Mette Toft Nielsen. lím collective is an experimental platform in North Jutland in Denmark, dedicated to alliances between contemporary art practice, health and care. Sensitive Matter is part of lím collective’s collaborative program with Vesthimmerland Refugee Centres, aimed at curating and developing cultural initiatives in partnership with residents and creative practitioners at the centre, focused on care and practices of resistance through creative organising.