Thomas Billhardt “Reunites with Vietnam”

The exhibition is one of the activities expressing the East - West connection of the Intercultural Meeting Place

This is an activity held by Goethe-Institut Ha Noi in collaboration with Intercultural meeting place and Camera Work

The exhibition introduces over 50 color and black and white photos taken by the photographer Thomas Billhardt by film cameras in Vietnam in the period between 1962 to 1999, including the ones that have never been displayed in Vietnam before. Hence, it brings to viewers the feelings and contemplation about war, peace, especially the images of wartime bomb shelters.

In this exhibition, the photographer Thomas Billhardt also introduces to viewers some photos about Thien Mu Pagoda and some royal mausoleums in Hue.

The wartime photos evoking viewer many emotions and contemplation

Thomas Billhardt was born in 1937 in Chemnitz, Germany. He is recognized as one of the outstanding documentary photographers of the German Democratic Republic era, and he is also one of the first photo-journalists documented the destruction of Vietnam war by cameras. The photos taken by him have played an important part in showing the world the horrors of Vietnam war (in the period of 1965 – 1975), especially through the faces of children he photographed.

Thomas Billhardt came to Ha Noi for the first time in 1967. In the fiercest of the war against the US in Vietnam, bombs were scattered throughout the battlefield from the North to the South, Thomas Billhardt took 7 trips to Vietnam and many other times after that. The photos taken during this period of time were published on many photo journals such as “The pilots wearing Pajamas” (1968), “Longing for Peace: Vietnam” (1973), “Ha Noi – The days before Peace” (1973), and “Vietnamese Faces” (1978)