At the PAC in Milan, the photographic project on Vietnam by Nicola Bertasi

The Project Room at the PAC Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea in Milan presents through September 10, 2023 the work of photographer and visual artist Nicola Bertasi, Like Rain Falling from the Sky, curated by Damarice AMAO.

Bertasi’s photographic project intends to weaveanother visual cartography of memory, making dialogue between the past and the present of a conflict that has deeply marked Vietnamese territories and bodies: the American war in Vietnam (1961-1975), which for its duration, intensity and mediatization shaped the Western visual imaginary after World War II. Immediately after its end, the conflict remains as a mirror of the tensions of the geopolitical context of the time - the Cold War, decolonization, globalization - but also of the identity crisis running through the United States, symbolized by its Vietnam veterans, tragic heroes who haunt the Hollywood film industry. We seem to have seen it all, however, confusing films, images of current events and media icons with reality.

Dodging the shock images of classical reportage, Nicola Bertasi makes the choice of a long time necessary for adocumentary investigation and an introspective journey. Thus appear the faces and voices of the protagonists too often reduced to silence, the images from the archives slipping over contemporary photographs. Thus Bertasi intends to make his own a sensitive, poetic and personal photographic narrative as an alternative to theimpasse of other, more official narratives. An adventurous exploration of memory that reactivates in him the memory of his own family history, also disrupted by war, long before Vietnam.

For info: https://www.pacmilano.it/

Hours: July, Tuesday through Sunday 10 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., Thursday 10 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. August and September, Tuesday through Sunday 12 to 7:30 p.m., Thursday 12 to 10:30 p.m. Closed on Mondays.

Image: Meeting with M Nguyen Dinh Long. Military service between 1972 and 1976 (2017). Credit Nicola Bertasi

At the PAC in Milan, the photographic project on Vietnam by Nicola Bertasi

Warning: the translation into English of the original Italian article was created using automatic tools. We undertake to review all articles, but we do not guarantee the total absence of inaccuracies in the translation due to the program. You can find the original by clicking on the ITA button. If you find any mistake,please contact us.