UXO stands for “Unex­plo­ded Ord­nan­ce”. This pho­to­gra­phic work seeks to testi­fy to the dan­ger that per­sists after the Viet­nam War.

I have fir­st tra­ve­led to Cam­bo­dia and disco­ve­red many mine­fields. After doing some research I rea­li­zed the­re are still many  land mines in the ground that inju­re and kill today, despi­te near­ly 50 years sin­ce the Viet­nam war and many civil wars. Upon retur­ning to Fran­ce I deci­ded to do some more research and plan a pro­ject around the­se unex­plo­ded ord­nan­ces. I retur­ned to Laos, Cam­bo­dia and Viet­nam in 2018 in order to bear wit­ness to the dan­gers that per­si­st with UXO  with my means of com­mu­ni­ca­tion, pho­to­gra­phy.

I used an aesthe­tic and soft approach that volun­ta­ri­ly con­trasts with the bit­ter­ness of the sub­ject. this aethe­ti­za­tion pro­cess crea­tes a fir­st level of rea­ding and sug­ge­st the hid­den part of unex­plo­ded ord­nan­ce, an invi­si­ble and threa­te­ning dan­ger.

The­re are still a lot of non-clea­red areas as ​​demi­ning is a slow and expen­si­ve pro­cess. But the funds are not big enou­gh, or poor­ly soli­ci­ted, to car­ry out an effec­ti­ve era­di­ca­tion. Yet mine clea­ran­ce con­sti­tu­tes a real finan­cial invest­ment as the eco­no­mic revi­val of the coun­try depends on it. The­se unex­plo­ded shells, main­ly loca­ted in rural areas, muti­la­te blind­ly the bodies of the inha­bi­tan­ts. In for­got­ten regions, the social inte­gra­tion of ampu­tees is beco­ming a cen­tral issue. Land­mi­nes still explo­de, inju­re and kill today. The vic­tims are mostly chil­dren, wor­kers and far­mers.

I wan­ted to come during the rai­ny sea­son becau­se when the water rises in this area a lot of land­mi­nes and bombs are unear­thed and displa­ced. This is why I have often pho­to­gra­phed water, like a con­duc­ti­ve thread in my pro­ject.