Exhibition Giữa Dòng Hợp Lưu (“Where Waters Meet”)
Date: 15.10 – 01.11.2026
Address: IDECAF | 31 Thái Văn Lung, Saigon Ward, HCMC
Opening: 6:00PM, 15.10.2026
Guided tour: 2:00PM, 17.10.2026

The exhibition Giữa Dòng Hợp Lưu (“Where Waters Meet”) presents 13 photography projects developed during a documentary photography workshop held around Thi Nai Lagoon in March 2026. The workshop was co-led by photographers Nicolas Cornet, Bình Đặng, and Hà Đào, with support from the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs (Fonds Équipe France: “Living with Rivers” 2025–2026), the Embassy of France, and the Institut français du Vietnam. The participants—Hồ Khánh Vy, Lê Phan Khánh Ngọc, Lưu Thu Hương, Nguyễn Khánh Hòa, Nguyễn Lê Hà Phương, Nguyễn Lê Tuấn Kiệt, Nguyễn Như Mỹ, Phạm Nguyên Bách, Phan Uyển Nhi, Thái Mây Linh, Trầm Khoan Nhựt Quang, Trần Trung Trị, and Vũ Ngọc Linh—came from different parts of Vietnam and were selected through an open call.

Spanning more than 5,000 hectares, Thi Nai Lagoon is a distinctive ecosystem where rivers meet the sea, land meets water, and human life intertwines with the changing rhythms of nature. While taking the lagoon and its communities as their departure point, the workshop is deliberately open-ended, allowing participants the space to pursue their own interests through observation and exploration.

Over five days, participants moved between fieldwork, observation, photography, and critique sessions. They were encouraged to spend time with the people they photographed, follow their initial questions, and consider how a photographic story takes shape.
Together, the 13 photographic stories offer different perspectives on Thị Nại Lagoon: from livelihoods and cultural practices shaped by water to changes in the landscape, human impacts, and the growing pressures of climate change. Beyond documenting the realities of the area, the works also reveal how each photographer interprets the environment and searches for their own place within a landscape in constant flux.

The exhibition also raises questions about the state of documentary photography. In a techno-social landscape where artificial intelligence is increasingly used for various ends, photography must be understood not merely as a means of image-making, but as a way of being present in and making sense of the world. A documentary photography workshop, then, might also need to nurture attentiveness and agency: how to enter a place, observe, and document the lives unfolding around us with awareness and a sense of responsibility.