The Irish Times - Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Photos bring to life remote Vietnamese community

Sung Thi Cho (27), a woman of the Hmong ethnic minority, cooking over an open fire in her home near Dong Van, Ha Giang province.
Chang Thi Giang (15) during an adult literacy and life skills class organised by the local Women's Union, and supported by Irish Aid, for Hmong women.
Women, mostly Hmong, from ethnic minorities selling pigs at the Sunday market in Dong Van, Ha Giang province, north Vietnam. The photograph features in Minority Report, an exhibition by Irish Times photographer Frank Miller at the Irish Aid Centre, O'Connell Street, Dublin. It runs until February 27th.

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GENEVIEVE CARBERY

A PHOTOGRAPHIC exhibition about one of Vietnam’s poorest and most isolated ethnic minorities was opened by Minister of State for Development Joe Costello in Dublin last night.

The exploration of the daily lives of the Hmong people was captured by Irish Times photographer Frank Miller during a visit to the country last year.

He travelled to the remote town of Dong Van in northern Vietnam, near the Chinese border, for the project which particularly looks at school, community and family scenes.

The collection “brings to life the challenges facing the Hmong people, but also vividly captures the joy that they so clearly take in family and community”, Mr Costello said yesterday.

“The exhibition looks at the lives of the ethnic minorities, mainly Hmong, who subsist by raising cattle and farming the rocky soils of this stunning mountainous land,” Mr Miller said.

The Minority Report exhibition will be on display at the Irish Aid Volunteering and Information Centre, Dublin, until February 27th (open from Monday to Friday; free entry).

Miller received money from the Simon Cumbers Media Fund to travel to Vietnam.

A slideshow is available at: iti.ms/yDYeVM