Pipo Nguyen-Duy: East of Eden, 2002-2006

Pipo Nguyen-Duy is a Vietnamese born photographer who immigrated to the United States as a political refugee. He earned a MFA in photography from the University of New Mexico, and now teaches photography at Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio. The East of Eden Series (2002-2006) photographs are staged to represent the United States of America as the Garden of Eden. The series is a representation of the American landscape post-9/11. It isn’t a pretty world. There are faults that are social as well as environmental. The image that stood out to me was the above image of a chair in a marsh. The image is very simple yet powerful. How did the chair get there? How long will it remain in the woods? The chair looks discarded and dejected in an unfriendly environment. It is an environment that is not meant to hold for this upholstered chair; it does not belong. It reminded me of growing up in the woods as a child. My father and I would find things like chairs discarded into the creek that ran behind our house. We would have to climb down the ravine and either rig a pulley system or follow the creek to lower ground to get the discarded material out. It showed the total disregard for people’s property and the environment. It is a reminder of how inconsiderate people can be.