Tendrils of Memory: A Journey through Vietnam’s Landscape

Les Horvat

doi:10.5130/csr.v16i2.1697

Cultural Studies Review 16.2 September 2010 Critical Proximity

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.5130/csr.v16i2.1697

Keywords:

Memory studies, landscape, cultural history, photography, creative practice

Les Horvat

Photography Studies College

Abstract

While the interdisciplinary field of memory studies is burgeoning, the relationship between creative practice, memory, and landscape, remains open to debate, especially when considered in terms of its validity as anthropological data for ethnographers and social scientists. This article calls for a new approach to landscape and memory that remains sensitive to the notion that photography is able to provide a relevant platform for the re-examination of lived experience. Landscape is positioned as a site for memory and forgetting, and as a cultural construct resonant with the fabric of who we are, who we have been in the past, and offering an indication of who we may be in the future. The importance of creative practice through its many forms is suggested as a well-credentialed means of interpreting lived experience, leading to the proposition that photography has an important role to play in furthering our understanding of cultural history.

Issue

Vol. 16 No. 2 (2010): Critical Proximity

Section

Articles (Peer Reviewed)

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Author Biography

Les Horvat, Photography Studies College

Les Horvat is Academic Director at Photography Studies College, Melbourne. Since joining the academy after a 20-year career as a commercial photographer, he has been examining the relationship between culture and creativity, and the role photography plays in this regard. His most recent project is ‘Interrogating the Past: Creative Practice as Personal and Cultural Memory in Post-war Vietnam’.

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Les Horvat, Photography Studies College