Photography exhibition “While the Water Still Flows” at DACC 2026

Water leaves no traces of yesterday; it carries everything away, blurring and erasing what came before. And yet, within its constant movement, human history continually resurfaces. Civilisations have always taken shape around water. The earliest communities emerged where rivers brought fertile soil and the means to live. By these waters, people have loved and parted, worked and fought, been born and passed away.

Water does not remember, yet we have always remembered through water.

The history of a place is not written only in books. It also lives in the rhythms of the water, in the livelihoods shaped by its rise and fall, in rituals and customs, and in the ways people continue to live alongside its currents. Perhaps this is why every body of water becomes an archive of its own, carrying within it layers of life accumulated over generations.

The works in this exhibition do not simply approach water as landscape or as something to be contemplated. Here, water becomes a point of reference through which people understand time, place, and themselves.

Each work follows a different current of life. It may be an estuary that has sustained generations; a river that has witnessed a separation, marked the beginning of a journey in search of a livelihood, or quietly flowed through periods of upheaval. However far these currents may travel, they meet at one point, where water continues to carry layers of memory from one generation to the next, binding people to the places they inhabit.

While the Water Still Flows does not attempt to retell history. Instead, it sees history as water: always moving, always changing course, at times still and at times turbulent, but never ceasing to flow. Like water, history does not remain fixed in the past. It continues to shape the present, quietly flowing towards tomorrow.

About the artists

1. Đồng Hiếu

Đồng Hiếu is a photographer and visual artist based in Hanoi, where he also teaches at the Department of Photography, Hanoi Academy of Theatre and Cinema. His artistic practice focuses on everyday life, social documentary photography, and the relationship between people and their living environments. In 2023, he received the Excellence Award in the Natural Ecology category at Xishuangbanna Foto Festival in China. His work was presented at Photo Hanoi 2025. Alongside his artistic and teaching practice, he actively contributes to the photography community through his roles as a competition juror, workshop mentor, and speaker.

2. dédé Photos

dédé is a photography collective founded in Hội An in 2021 by Nguyễn Đình Phong, Tấn Ngọc, Hải Ô, and Thái Khương. Based primarily in Vietnam’s South Central Coast, the collective brings together individuals with distinct voices and practices, sharing a space for exchange, experimentation, and mutual support. Its members work across documentary and street photography, personal projects, and commercial assignments. Beyond image-making, dédé organises workshops, gatherings, and independent exhibitions, helping connect the photography community and create spaces for exchange beyond established art institutions.

3. Nguyễn Hoàng Việt

Nguyễn Hoàng Việt (born in 1999 in Hòa Bình, Vietnam) graduated from the Academy of Journalism and Communication and pursued journalism before turning to photography as a personal practice. Having grown up moving homes frequently, he carries enduring questions about memory, place, and belonging. In recent years, photography has become a way for him to engage in self-reflection and explore buried memories, emotions, and inner conflicts. Through this process, Việt continues to examine the relationship between self, memory, and place, while seeking a sense of belonging that was absent from his childhood.

4. Gia Hương

Gia Hương (born in 2001) graduated with a double major in Art and Media Studies and Sociology from Fulbright University Vietnam. She works across visual art and journalism, contributing to publications including L’Officiel, ELLE Man, Art Republik, and others. In her practice, she approaches photography as a form of intersemiotic translation, expressing experiences and emotions that exceed the limits of language while creating space for reflection, healing, and critical awareness. Beside her artistic practice, Gia Hương works as a medical interpreter and is also involved in supporting the care and education of visually impaired young people, autistic children, and children with intellectual disabilities.

About the curators

1. Mai Nguyên Anh

Mai Nguyen Anh is a Vietnamese visual artist whose practice combines documentary photography with subjective interpretation to explore personal narratives and social paradoxes. He began his career as a photojournalist, working for AFP in the Middle East and VnExpress from 2012 to 2015, and received a scholarship from the International Center of Photography in New York in 2015. His work has been published in Financial Times, Bloomberg, and The Guardian. In 2016, he co-founded Matca, a community-based photography project in Vietnam. In 2018, he received the Open Category award at the Objectifs Documentary Photography Award in Singapore. Since 2021, he has collaborated with PhotoHanoi as a curator.

2. Nguyễn Ngọc Hải

Nguyễn Ngọc Hải (Haiheo) began his photographic practice in 2017. Based in Da Nang, he works as a freelance wedding photographer and occasionally documents behind-the-scenes activities for independent film projects. Alongside his commercial work, he maintains long-term personal documentary photography projects exploring memory, family, locality, and a sense of belonging. His practice has developed through self-directed learning, hands-on experience, and short-term courses. His work has been exhibited at venues and collections including Da Nang Fine Arts Museum, IDECAF, Matca, and Dogma Collection.