US photographer raises money for Agent Orange victim
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A photo exhibition showcasing the painful life of a Vietnamese child suffering from disabilities caused by Agent Orange took place at 28 Tong Duy Tan in Hanoi on Sunday.
Titled “Nu’s pain,” the exhibition featured 20 black and white photos about the life of Nu—an autistic child with hearing and visual impairments—taken over four years by American photographer Justin Mott.
Agent Orange is a defoliant that was sprayed extensively in Vietnam and Cambodia by U.S. forces during the war with America. The dioxins, which experts say are still in the soil of heavily sprayed areas, are suspected of effecting millions of Vietnamese and causing hundreds of thousands of birth defects.
Money from auctioning photos and ticket sales will be used for Nu’s physiotherapy treatment and medical care at the dioxin victims support center, Friendship Village.
Nu cannot hear, speak or see, and is autistic. Agent Orange is thought to have caused the mental illness of Nu's father, and she now lives with her grandparents.
Mott met Nu in 2007. He was born in Rhode Island, and now lives in Hanoi and is working throughout Southeast Asia. In 2008, his work on Agent Orange orphans won the annual photo contest from the America-based PDN magazine and he was awarded the Morty Forscher Fellowship for humanistic photography from the Parson’s school of Design in New York City.
