They came into this world nearly two generations and thousands of miles apart, but the lives of Roger LeBrun, born in Providence, Rhode Island in 1946, and Quyen Truong '05, born in Saigon, Vietnam in 1983, intersect in the images they have created from the war in Vietnam. While serving as a medic with the U.S. First Cavalry, LeBrun took hundreds of photographs on "the fringes of war": unwanted Amerasian children finding shelter, and sometimes love, in a Buddhist monastery; Vietnamese women who did what they must to survive; and images of his colleagues, in whose faces and artifacts are reflected the pathos, confusion, desperation, and tragedy of the war. Truong, a visual arts concentrator at Brown, has rendered her father's memories of life in a Vietnamese re-education camp into large, stark, black and white paintings that capture not only the pain and suffering inflicted by camp guards but also the humanity demonstrated by the prisoners toward each other, permitting many to survive.
The Watson Institute's Critical Oral History Projects organized the exhibition as part of its commemoration of "Three Anniversaries in the War with Vietnam' program.
Roger LeBrun, University of Rhode Island
Quyen Truong '05, Visual Arts Concentrator, Brown University
Photo: "Nightmares,' by Quyen Truong '05. Oil, permanent marker, black ink, and charcoal on muslin.
From the Exhibition Guide: "Aside from human-inflicted punishment, re-education camp prisoners faced malnourishment, heat-stroke, infectious diseases, malaria, and dysentery, among other traumas. Although the population of these labor-intensive camps was diverse—everyone from South Vietnamese doctors to soldiers were forced to endure re-education—the men found community in each other. My father recounted many tales of how he survived because another prisoner looked after him, or found him when he was injured and sick in the jungle. Throughout the gloom of sickness and feverish nightmares, these men tried their best to ensure each other's survival. Images of ghostly spirits and watchful eyes are integrated into the painting to emphasize the conflicting senses and the fevered thoughts of the sick man portrayed.'