Pipo Nguyen-duy “(My) East of Eden”

ClampArt

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ClampArt presents “(My) East of Eden,” Pipo Nguyen-duy’s second solo show with the gallery.

While working as a Guggenheim fellow to document Vietnamese war amputees in 2012, Pipo Nguyen-duy began working on “(My) East of Eden” in the Mekong Delta. This project is the artist’s attempt to reclaim his childhood memories of growing up in Vietnam during the Vietnam War. Beyond serving as the means to tell his stories, Nguyen-duy intends for these images to address issues such as legacy, hope, and regeneration. Working with rural Vietnamese children in school uniforms, the artist created portraits and staged photographs reminiscent of 19th-century British landscape paintings where the environment and its inhabitants coexist in harmony.

Pipo Nguyen-duy was born in Hue, Vietnam. Growing up within thirty kilometers of the demilitarized zone of the 18th Parallel, he describes hearing gunfire every day of his early life. He later immigrated to the United States as a political refugee. Nguyen-duy has taken on many things in life in pursuit of his diverse interests. As a teenager in Vietnam, he competed as a national athlete in table tennis. He also spent some time living as a Buddhist monk in Northern India. Eventually Nguyen-duy earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics at Carleton College. He then moved to New York City, where he worked as a bartender and later as a nightclub manager. Finally, Nguyen-duy earned a Master of Arts in Photography, followed by a Master of Fine Arts in Photography, both from the University of New Mexico at Albuquerque.

Nguyen-duy has received many awards and grants including a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship in Photography; a National Endowment for the the Arts; and an En Foco Grant. Nguyen-duy has lectured widely and his work is part of many public collections in the United States, Europe, and Asia.

He is currently a professor teaching photography at Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio.