The Desiring Garden, 2011
Portraits of strangers produced in the heart of densely urban Hanoi in slightly absurdist environments fabricated by the photographer. The objects placed within the settings created in small parks in the city were sourced at local wet markets – cut flowers, harvested fruit and vegetables, raw or cooked animals – embellish the fiction of these colonial-inspired views of the exotic other. The people portrayed in these Rousseau-like tableaux were encountered in situ. The nude triptych takes its point of departure from colonial carte-postale popularized during the French occupation of what was then called Indochina.
