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Home Work Domestic labour in the suburbs and villages in and around Hanoi, Vietnam |
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Between September 2006 and May 2008, I spent two six month periods in Vietnam, travelling around the suburbs and villages in and around the capital city of Hanoi, photographing rural life, exploring places where foreigners seldom visit. Currently, around 75% of the population of Vietnam are farmers, a figure the State wants to reduce in the next four years. As Vietnam moves towards urbanisation, the country's agricultural labour force faces the prospect of losing its land to urban projects - and its way of life. With Vietnam's growing population also making less land available for farmers to work, families unable to sustain themselves are turning to the creation of various products in rural areas. These 'craft' villages have become the meeting point between rural and urban, agriculture and industry. Specialising in producing a single product, some craft villages date back historically hundreds of years originally relying on locally available resources, others have recently started as a way for farmers to earn a much needed extra income. Often, it wasn't difficult to work out the speciality of each village, the whirring of silk weaving machines in Van Phúc coming from every house as I wandered around the back streets, sheets of noodles drying in the rice fields in Tân Hòa or whole communities sitting in their doorways making various forms of the ubiquitous palm hat. The flat landscape in the Red River Delta area isn't particularly beautiful; the villages are functional rather than attractive. The traditional village house is typically single storey and consists of three rooms. The large central room is a multi purpose living and sleeping area as well as a place to work, and it is in this room where many of my images are taken, the mix of work and everyday objects fascinates me visually. Interspersed with images from daily life on the rice field and in the villages, these photographs depict 'working from home' in an unromanticised sense, where their subjects, mostly women, balance childcare with the routine work necessary for survival. Often they work in isolation making separate elements of a product which are then passed on to another family for completion. During the last decade, along with rapid national economic development many craft villages have increased production up to five fold through small-scale industrial development. However, the undesirable consequence of this shift is increased waste and environmental pollution with the resources of the landscape becoming overused. |
| The commune rents each family piece of land, according to the number of people in each household, in which to grow rice and vegetables. With Vietnam's growing population making less land available for farmers to work, usually this is not large enough to meet the family's requirements so most have extra jobs. |  |
Rice Harvesting, Phu Vinh |
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Phu My - conical hat making village |
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Phu Cau - incense stick making village | |
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Feathers for stuffing pillows awaiting collection |
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| Originally woven products were made for domestic use but now they are mainly for export. Vietnamese people prefer plastic - it's cheaper and it lasts longer. |  |
Luu Thuong - te grass weaving village |
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Luu Thuong - te grass weaving village |
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Collecting mulberry leaves, Chi Dong | |
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Chi Dong - silkworm village |
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Quat Dong - embroidery village | |
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Thuy Ung - horn processing village |
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Mach Trang - Bun (rice noodle) making village |
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Kim Chinh |
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Le Mat - snake catching village | |
| The boy said if he pulled the birds feathers out they would grow back even bluer. |  |
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