Ink, acrylic, markers and glue on old books
Work in progress.
Inspired from
(1) Reading the book The Perfect War: Technowar in Vietnam by James William Gibson,1986.
" From 1965 through 1973, the United State dropped at minimum over 8 million tons of munitions from aircraft onto South East Asia. The air ar over South East Asia was thus the largest air war in world history. The united State did not use atomic weapons, but eight million tons is the equivalent in explosive force to 640 atomic bombs of the size used at Hiroshima."
(2) these pictures like this one
that one can easily get by using google keyword " bomb craters in Vietnam"
and (3) my personal experience.
When the United State B -52operation conducted its "Christmas bombing" from 18 to 29 of December , 1972, I was 1 year and 2 month old baby , lived with my mother in Ha Noi. My mother recalled the fact that she carried me to the bomb shelter underneath my family bed whenever she heard the siren and the sound of the B-52 flew over .
I did not remember the bombing back then but vividly remember the fish pond that formed from the B-52 bomb crater in front of my small house at Thuy Khue, Ha Noi. I used to think the crater was a lake, a very big lake.
After 43 years later, I experience having a feeling scared, frightened, threaten, angry, crying and frustrated hearing the sound of Fight fleet called Blue Jet Angel over my head when the fleet comes to Seattle every summer for annual air show. Early memory slowly comes back and sinking heavily in my heart.
Post Trauma Stress Disorder ? Depression ? Nightmare? or just my imagination ?
I do not want to know. All I know that the series of book I am making right now is the way to respond to my internal distressed feeling, the way for me to hopefully one day to reconcile with my past, an effort to let go heavy stuff to heal my invisible wound and to make peace within myself.
