The Japan Foundation Center for Cultural Exchange in Vietnam will open a film and photography exhibition ‘Jo Ha Kyu’ by Nguyen Trinh Thi and Jamie Maxtone-Graham in Hanoi from Wednesday based on the couple’s experiences of Tokyo.
Jo Ha Kyu film and photo exhibition in Hanoi
By Thu Ha in Hanoi
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| A photo taken by Jamie Maxtone-Graham in Tokyo - Photo: Official website of the photographer |
The Japan Foundation Center for Cultural Exchange in Vietnam will open a film and photography exhibition ‘Jo Ha Kyu’ by Nguyen Trinh Thi and Jamie Maxtone-Graham in Hanoi from Wednesday based on the couple’s experiences of Tokyo.
Jo Ha Kyu is an essential concept of the narrative structure in all traditional Japanese temporal arts. Zeami, founder of Noh drama, considers the structure as a small stream expanding into a river which eventually becomes a waterfall that crashes into a still pond; Jo Ha Kyu encapsulates the idea, in simplest terms, of a beginning, middle and end.
Tokyo has been inspiring a plethora of foreign artists to create works based on their experiences in this unique city. One such example is the critically-acclaimed movie ‘Lost in Translation’ (2003) directed by Sofia Coppola.
Highly sophisticated foreign eyes more often than not shed a beautiful light on ordinary life in Japan from different angles and cause us to become aware of the hidden attractiveness of daily life in the land of the rising sun.
The case of Thi, one of the most promising independent film makers in Vietnam, and Maxtone-Graham, her husband and a prominent photographer, is no exception. They spent some months in Tokyo and their drifting around the big city resulted in a short film and 60 pieces of photography.
The exhibition aims to give Vietnamese audiences the chance to enjoy not only the artistic value of the film and photography but also a new dimension of Tokyo through the beautifully-installed artworks without visiting one of the world’s most expensive cities.
Thi is a Hanoi-based independent documentary filmmaker and video artist. She studied journalism and photography at the University of Iowa and International Studies and ethnographic film at University of California, San Diego. Her documentary and experimental films have been screened at festivals and art exhibitions across Asia and Europe. Maxtone-Graham has spent more than 20 years in commercial and narrative cinematography. As a Director of Photography in New York and Los Angeles, his works range from independent to mainstream feature films, television and advertising. In 2007 he became a Fulbright Fellow, receiving a grant funding his proposal to photograph contemporary youth culture in present-day Vietnam. He currently lives in Hanoi and continues to shoot commercials and narrative films, produce documentaries and personal photography projects.
The show will run to May 24 at the center, 27 Quang Trung Street in Hoan Kiem District. There will be an exchange with the artists at 4 p.m. on May 5.