By Tessa Bunney on 15 December 2014
A Hmong woman splicing hemp in the remote and roadless village of Ban Chalern, Phongsaly province. In Lao PDR, hemp is now only cultivated by the Hmong in remote mountainous areas of the north. Ban Chalern will soon be relocated away from the Nam Ou river due to construction of the Nam Ou Cascade Hydropower Project Dam 7.
This week I’ll be spending a couple of days working with Passa Paa a cultural design collective in Luang Prabang – photographing their work using traditional hemp fabrics and Hmong patterns to “explore the…
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By Tessa Bunney on 12 December 2014
A Tai Dam woman from Vietnam working as a prostitute in a village close by to the Nam Ou Cascade Hydropower Project Dam 5 construction site, Phongsaly province, Lao PDR.
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By Tessa Bunney on 12 December 2014
This week’s Picture of the Week comes from the Muslim community of Van Lam in Central Vietnam where the Cham girls underwent a Karoh (maturity) ceremony – one of the most important ritual events of their lives.
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By Tessa Bunney on 28 November 2014
Midday prayers in the women’s prayer room in a Cham village from this weeks fabulous few days recce in south Vietnam.
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By Tessa Bunney on 21 November 2014
Very pleased to announce that two images from the Hand to Mouth series are currently on show as part of the ABOUT LAND: The Landscape In Contemporary Photography exhibition at Klompching Gallery in Brooklyn, NY.
‘Market’ from the series Hand to Mouth
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By Tessa Bunney on 17 November 2014
A view of the remote and roadless Laoseng village of Ban Mouangva showing the old and new villages, Phongsaly province, Lao PDR.
Recently temporarily relocated away from the Nam Ou river (a major tributary of the Mekong), Ban Mouangva will be joined with two other Laoseng villages following the construction of the Nam Ou Cascade Hydropower Project Dam 6.
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By Tessa Bunney on 10 November 2014
Ms Vanthone, metalworker casting bracelets made from recycled aluminium sourced from Vietnam War debris and melted in an earthen kiln in Ban Naphia, a remote Tai Phouan village in mountainous Xieng Khouang Province in Northern Laos.
Laos is the most bombed country, per capita, in the world with more than two million tons of ordnance dropped on it during the Vietnam War from 1963 to 1974.12 artisan families began transforming war scrap into spoons (150,000 per year) in the 1970s to supplement subsistence…
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By Tessa Bunney on 3 November 2014
A Khmu man repairs his fishing net in the remote and roadless village of Ban Kengvang, Phongsaly province, Lao PDR.
15 years ago, the village of Ban Kengvang relocated from the mountain to the banks of the Nam Ou river but will soon be temporarily relocated back up the mountain due to the construction of the Nam Ou Cascade Hydropower Project Dam 5.
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By Tessa Bunney on 27 October 2014
I recently travelled on a new stretch (for me) of the Nam Ou river from Hatsa downstream to Sampan, in Phongsaly province. The trip was quite remarkable, it always is, you never know what you will see, but this trip was particularly so.
In Phongsaly province there are at least 28 different ethnic groups out of the officially recognised 49 in Laos, each with their own cultures, traditions, costumes and languages. In the area north of Hatsa the villages are a mix of Hmong, Laoseng and Tai Lue. Along the Nam Ou south of Hatsa, there are many small roadless…
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By Tessa Bunney on 20 October 2014
Harvesting ‘khao kam’ (brown sticky rice) in the Hmong minority village of Ban Chalern, Phongsaly province, Lao PDR.
The Nam Ou river’s catchment is inhabited mainly by subsistence farmers practicing shifting cultivation on steep hills.
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By Tessa Bunney on 13 October 2014
A Tai Lue boy fishing in the Nam Lan river (a tributary of the Nam Ou), Phongsaly province, Lao PDR.
The 425km Nam Ou, one of the Mekong River’s major tributaries, connects small riverside villages and provides the rural population with food from fishing. It is a place where children play and families bathe, where men fish and women wash their clothes.
But this river and others like it, that are the lifeline of rural communities and local economies are…
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By Tessa Bunney on 3 October 2014
Afternoon at the Nam Ou riverside in the remote and roadless Laoseng minority village of Ban Phoumeuang, Phongsaly province, Lao PDR.
The 425 km long Nam Ou, one of the Mekong river’s major tributaries, connects small riverside villages and provides the rural population with food from fishing. It is a place where children play and families bathe, where men fish and women wash their clothes.
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By Tessa Bunney on 1 October 2014
Delighted that my portrait of Marta Layaog on Bantayan Island, The Philippines has been selected for the Portrait Salon exhibition, projection and publication. The publication and projection will launch on 6th November at Four Corners (London) and in Brighton in association with Miniclick. The print exhibition will open at White Cloth Gallery in Leeds on the same date and will then tour to Bradford, North Wales, Edinburgh, Bristol and Birmingham during 2014/15.
Six months after Typhoon Haiyan: Portrait of a Fishing Community – Bantayan Island
In Pooc every morning at…
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By Tessa Bunney on 29 September 2014
“The general character of the land is one of chaotic mountains just sticking out of the ground, their tops separated by ravines or narrow locked-in valleys (…) cliffs, steep mountain faces, confusing valleys, an ocean of summits, cones, mounds and pyramids for as far as the eye can see. They run into each other, stretch and sway in front of each other…”
E. Guillemet, who visited Phongsaly province in 1917
When I stand and look at a landscape I just want to be inside it….
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By Tessa Bunney on 22 September 2014
An Akha Nuquie woman spinning cotton as she returns to her village from the forest, Phongsaly province.
There are few villages that have resisted resettlement in Laos – a consequence of the Governments efforts to suppress both the cultivation of opium poppies and slash and burn agriculture.
For now, a small group of villages continues their traditional way of life high up in the mountains of Phongsaly, away from…
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By Tessa Bunney on 15 September 2014
This weekend I have been guesting posting on Instagram for the @telegraphtelephoto. Thanks to all who came over and took at look at my work from my recent trip to Phongsaly and Houaphan province. If you would like to see the images they are still viewable on Instagram at @telegraphtelephoto. So this weeks Picture of the Week is the photograph which got the most likes – the landscape of Houaphan taken whilst on the road between Nong Khiaw and Sam Neua – one of the most beautiful (and pothole less) roads I have ever driven on in Laos!
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By Tessa Bunney on 8 September 2014
Happy to say I have arrived back safely from Phongsaly and Houaphan provinces, more about that in the coming days but in the meantime here is this weeks picture from Phongsaly Province.
In families living away from the main roads and markets, food caught or collected from the wild, especially edible plants and small animals still make-up fifty percent of their diet. Nature’s bounty in providing for the Lao may be plentiful, but this does not mean that the task of growing and finding…
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By Tessa Bunney on 27 August 2014
When you are photographing seasonal activities sometimes you have to travel when it’s really a bit unpredictable and some might consider a little foolish. However, all being well, tomorrow I will be heading back to Phongsaly province to spend a few days travelling up the Nam Ou river followed by a two day road trip over the mountains to Houaphan province to visit the Hmong villages as they hopefully are harvesting and processing their hemp fibre. Rainy season hazards could include: cancelled flights, flooding, mud, slippy slidey footpaths and roads, leeches, landslides and lots more mud. Upside being it really is…
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By Tessa Bunney on 27 August 2014
Due to being away next Monday working on this project in a remote corner of Phongsaly province, next weeks Picture of the Week is a little early!!
A Khmu girl working on her family farm in Oudomxay province, Lao PDR.
The scarcity of agricultural land in Southern Yunnan province is encouraging Chinese farmers and small scale entrepreneurs to cross the international border between China and Lao PDR in order to invest in cash crops. The villagers are supplied with seeds, plastic and fertilisers to…
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By Tessa Bunney on 25 August 2014
Slash and burn landscape, Phongsaly province, Lao PDR.
Swidden cultivation or ‘hai’ in Lao consists of cutting the natural vegetation, leaving it to dry and then burning it for temporary cropping of the land, the ash acting as a natural fertiliser. To rebuild the soil fertility after growing crops on a shifting cultivation plot, farmers ‘abandon’ that plot and allow vegetation to regrow for a number of years. This is called the ‘fallow period’. In the meantime, they grow crops on other new plots.
Low population densities, low incomes and low…
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