A Folktale From Vietnam: Speeding Motorcycles and Roasted Lemongrass is the result of eight years of research and the production of a series of photographs taken in 2013, 2015 and 2018 during Gianpaolo Arena’s travels through Vietnam.

Both the photographs and the essays examine the complex bond between landscape and human civilization. In this sprawling sequence of urban growth, places and portraits we find continual antitheses of periods and customs that sometimes clash, at others meld. This project captures fragments of different rituals and ways of life of the contemporary Vietnamese society. The author offer a glimpse of Vietnam’s present and future cities between time and decay, culture and capitalism, folklore and propaganda.

Gianpaolo Arena

The Velvet Cell, 2021

144 pages, 24 X 12 cm