“Keep My Heart”

La Plantation Urban Resort & Spa

21st Nov – 21^st Dec 2024

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To invent a portrait of Vietnamese youth today, Chiron Duong proceeded in a systematic and highly organized manner. He asked each of his models, all different, to come to his studio with two types of clothing, those they usually wear on a daily basis to go for a coffee or meet friends and those they reserve for more important, more formal events, such as cocktail parties, concerts, artistic events. He also asked them to answer a twenty-point questionnaire that allowed him to form a more precise opinion of them. Often surprising questions: Which painting would you like to destroy or burn? Describe a chair that does not exist or describe a mask that you would like to wear, for example. He then had his characters pose, asking them to move, to throw small objects while lighting them with strobe flashes that allow him to break down the movement and invent, in a rather random way, dynamic compositions. This is how he already proceeded for his series on "Ao Dài", the traditional Vietnamese dress that he published in 2023in a large book that he titled Hope for Peace and Love.

Born in 1996, Chiron Duong did not intend to pursue photography at all and studied to become an architect and landscaper at the University of Ho Chi Minh City. He continues to work in these fields but, since 2017, he has been interested in photography and has quickly gained recognition in the field of fashion which is his professional activity and he was awarded in France by the Prix Picto for fashion photography in 2020,then in 2022 by the reference festival of fashion and photography of Hyères (France)before receiving in 2022 the Photo prize of Italian Vogue.

This project on youth is an exploration of identity as it’s possible to perceive through clothing appearance and asks whether or not it corresponds to a deep, inner reality. A questioning of the conscious and unconscious behaviors of this Vietnamese youth.