To commemorate the 40th anniversary of the end of the war with the US, the Art Vietnam Gallery in Hanoi is showing a photo exhibition of National Geographic photographer Catherine Karnow.

The exhibition titled – Vietnam: 25 Years of Documenting a Changing Country – documenting Karnov’s lifelong work in Vietnam opened on April 10 and runs through May 8.

Catherine's photos truly capture the images of a country in change.

On the one hand they feature a nation still bound by its past with vivid pictures of General Vo Nguyen Giap, who gloriously led the nation’s armed forces against both the French and American imperialism.

However, on the other hand, they depict another Vietnam, one in which a nation is freeing itself of war memories and rushing forward into a new Doi Moi renovation period.

But the exhibition reveals that the past is not easily forgotten as the toxic and horrific effects of Agent Orange continue to carry the past into the future, still causing horrifying birth defects and suffering by its victims.   

The photos below belong to Catherine Karnow:


A woman on the Thong Nhat (Reunification) Train in 1990

Waiting for the ferry in Ho Chi Minh City in 1990

The last royal descendants in 1990

Vietnam in the doi moi (renovation) process

The New Vietnam


Vietnam's film industry


Sidewalk Haircut in Vietnam (1994)

General Vo Nguyen Giap

General Giap’s funeral

AO victims


Vietnamese-American man with his Vietnamese mother

US veteran John Abbey and his daughter visit a kindergarten in Quang Tri



VOV