Mangrove Theatre: The Wartime Photography of Võ An Khánh

Throughout the Vietnam War, Võ An Khánh (1936-2023) documented the hidden lives of communist guerrilla fighters and their communities, living throughout the country's mangrove forests. A member of the North Vietnam Communist Army, Võ was tasked with upholding the vision of collective socialist struggle, yet his images often dwell on unexpected moments of relative stillness amongst the midst of war.

“Mangrove Theatre” presents the first European monographic exhibition of Võ’s work. Every frame captures an impossible moment. Children attend lessons in jungle classrooms designed to be quickly disassembled to maintain cover. Women in ascetic uniforms perform balletic leaps across flooded fields. Medics operate knee-deep in swamp water - a scene of wartime surrealism that Hollywood studios would spend fortunes attempting to recreate.

The exhibition focuses on sixteen scenes that reveal constant rehearsal—from children playing to fighters practicing their movements. Masks appear as a frequent motif, designed to protect identities in case of capture, adding to the sense of the forest as a site of surreal theater. With limited exposures per film cartridge, every shot demanded precision. Võ developed his negatives in the field, storing them in ammunition boxes with rice to absorb moisture. The result is a collection of images that possess the compositional rigour of cinema and the candor of photojournalism.

For decades, Western photographers shaped how the world saw the Vietnam War through images of pain and bloodshed. While these photographs stirred emotions worldwide, they reduced Vietnam to a narrow stereotype: a nation of silent farmers and fighters to be either feared or pitied. Alongside Võ's photographs, the exhibition presents images by international war photographers including Don McCullin, Tim Page, and Nick Ut, demonstrating the stark difference in visual language between outside observers and those who lived the reality. It is now 50 years since the fall or liberation of Saigon (1975), the event that marked the end of the war. This anniversary gives reason to rethink the stories told of Vietnam, better understanding the communities that experienced these events.