Focusing on a group of teenagers at Làng Hữu Nghị, the photographs project an intimate choreography between the subjects and the artist duo with the occasional drawing intervention by the subjects. Using American commercial advertising lexicon and reflecting on iconic documentary photographs, neon sculptures and wallpaper made in collaboration with Nguyễn Tiến Hưng, who participated in the duo’s workshop in 2018-2020, explore the commercialization of war, counteract the sensationalism of Western media, and contemplate how these war images resonate today. War Words (2021), the second installation of the show, is a continued exploration of the implications of psychological warfare through propaganda. It looks at the capitalist influence of post-war, soft power by repurposing propaganda used by the U.S. army and the Northern Vietnamese army during the war.
