'Vietnam is a country, not a war,' declared then-Vietnamese ambassador Vuong Thua Phong at the British Museum's 2001 opening of 'Vietnam Behind the Lines: Images from the War 1965-1975'. The exhibition travels to the Hong Kong Museum of Art this month, and then to Europe in the spring. It includes more than 130 drawings, life sketches, paintings and posters, largely by Viet Cong artists.
Although Vietnam is going through a period of stability and growth, Vuong's statement three years ago is still relevant. The US is embroiled in another foreign conflict, anti-US sentiment is running high, and some critics say too much attention has been paid to politics and strategy, as opposed to civilians and their daily lives.
One of the exhibition's aims is to counter the western media's war images with what Jessica Harrison-Hall of the British Museum calls 'the daily life of the Vietnamese'.
'Life was continuing despite the war,' she says. 'These images capture the universal nature of what these people were going through, and contrast with the usual western perspective. This exhibition shows life through the eyes of the Vietnamese.'
Restricted by their environment, the artists often performed their sketches quickly, with ballpoint pen, crayon, pencil, charcoal, Chinese ink or whatever was available. The art portrays little death. 'Artists said they couldn't make sketches of friends dying,' says Harrison-Hall. 'In the sketches, you don't tend to get images of blood and gore, partly because of the length of time available. With a camera you can take quick shots and it's over, but with sketches you have to take time.' According to the British Museum, more than 2,000,000 Vietnamese died in the conflict between 1959 and 1975.
'I just drew what was going on around me, whether it was of people working or of the surrounding environment,' says 74-year old Professor Nguyen Thu, whose war-time silk paintings are being shown in the exhibition. 'I had to create paintings rapidly. The paintings that were produced reflect the painters' private feelings.'