I was born in Vietnam in 1974, a year before the fall of Saigon.

My parents left the country, I was 9 years old when we escaped the communist regime. My Aunt was married in Belgium that’s why we were exiled there. As a kid you don't understand many things yet, but you still accumulate quite a bit of information.

It's a bit like having somewhat blurry images in your head and trying to make them clear.

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I choose photography to tell my story and fill up the gaps of my past.

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In my first year of art school, I began reconnecting with my roots and went to meet the Vietnamese community in Belgium. There was feeling of incompleteness, like a big puzzle with hundreds of missing pieces. I had to go revisit my past, that's why I returned to Vietnam in 1997, for the first time 16 years after that we left with my parents.

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This vague idea of knowing something a little and having the opportunity to delve deeper was truly exhilarating. So, I decided to revisit my past through my memories.  I was lucky enough to still have some contacts in Vietnam to immediately immersed myself in my culture, traditions and revisit my past.

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Being able to rediscover some places where we lived until 1983 was a blast. Finally many vague images of my childhood took shape, and I could travel through my childhood memories. To cut things short, it was a true pilgrimage that established a genuine connection between the past and the present.

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I was just a boy who loved nature, simplicity, authenticity, and the sincerity of the farm. It's a life I would have loved to live, so harmonious and close to the natural rhythm of the crops and the animals we raise. A life that is often harsh, but nonetheless full of meaning. So, I went to a farm and took as many pictures as I could, as you can see, even at 20 years old, I could offer a certain degree of coherence and depth in my thoughtful work.

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To reinforce the authentic aspect of the project, I presented the prints in a wooden chest made by my father, filled with fragrant hay from the farm... no one understood my work, I got bullied and shouted at the day I presented my photographic work to the members of the jury at my art school:

"Get that stupid chest out of here and put your photos on that damn table!"

That was the reaction I got

Today I am proud and happy that I did all these photo shoots and share them to those who want to travel back in time and experience the 90s as I lived them. Even though I stopped photography because of all the bullying about my work as I I was totally misunderstood.

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My work on traditional farming in Belgium was not the glamours champagne making that the city people wanted to see. It was the expression of my admiration for these farmers who have chosen this natural lifestyle and farming in harmony with nature. It wasn’t its glamorous side but it was necessary to maintain a balance between nature and humans. Traditional farming where animals were respected and cared for versus industrial farming where animals have no longer an identity, but they are only a product, a commodity to be used.

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It was 30 years ago when i pulled the alarm about how we see things and how all this will be lost if we don’t do something about it.

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