Brooklyn Exhibition (Anjali)
February 16th, 2008I found this exhibition to be a great approach to talking about the Vietnam War, literally. Previous coverage that I’ve seen about the war have pretty much included photographs, documentary footage with government officials, soundbites from soldiers, and newspaper clippings. But this was the first time I was hearing firsthand accounts from the men and women who were actually involved - their uncensored thoughts on the war, what they went through, what daily life was like. In other words, the emotional and personal aspects that you would never get from a documentary, I think.
That’s why I thought the portraits combined with the audio were so effective. This allowed me to just focus on my sense of hearing and let the other senses be. I could focus on the tone and emotion conveyed through each voice. One account that was especially powerful was the veteran who recounted how his troop was ordered to fire upon this one Vietnamese woman and he kept insisting that she wasn’t an enemy, just somebody going about her business. But she ended up being shot and killed in front of his eyes.
Aside from the audio and portraits, another interesting feature were the kiosks that allowed me to listen to segments of audio and control what I wanted to listen to. Even though the audio/portraits were engrossing, I found the kiosks to be even more so…maybe because we could sit while listening and the headphones blocked out other noises. Yet, on the other hand, I liked the wireless aspect of the audio/portraits. However, I felt that the ones set up by the stairwell were harder to listen to, especially with people coming up and down the stairs and other ambient noises. The audio/portraits that were in the room were easier to hear.