photographer chiron duong explores the styles and subconscious worlds of vietnam's youth

Keep My Heart: Fashion as a Window to the Subconscious

Chiron Duong continues his vibrant photographic journey with a new project titled Keep My Heart. In this series, Duong explores the youth of Vietnam, using their clothing as a lens to reflect their subconscious and unconscious worlds. Each image features distinct characters set against vibrant backgrounds, with their attire and movements vividly captured. Every photograph tells its own story, overflowing with diverse forms, dynamic lines, and a rich color palette that evokes a range of emotions, often contradictory in nature.

all images courtesy of Chiron Duong

Chiron Duong’s Vibrant Portrayal of Vietnamese Youth

Conducted between 2023 and 2024, Chiron Duong’s project aims to explore the contrast between the subconscious and unconscious worlds of young Vietnamese people, aged 20 to 30, and how these inner realms are expressed through their clothing choices. Each participant in this project comes from a different field and has unique experiences. Duong asked his subjects to prepare two outfits: one for casual occasions like meeting friends or having morning coffee, and another for more formal events like meetings, art shows, or concerts. They were then photographed in these outfits.

To delve deeper into their inner worlds, the Vietnamese photographer created a special questionnaire that allowed each participant to share insights into their subconscious, unconscious, and conscious selves. The questionnaire was designed to intertwine timelines, blending traditional Vietnamese culture with contemporary influences, and to reflect Duong’s own unconscious musings. Participants were asked to select at least five questions that resonated with them, from which Duong then developed visual concepts. Questions ranged from ‘An unreal animal that comes to your mind?’ to ‘How many eyes, noses, mouths, and ears do you have on your head?‘. These concepts aimed to reveal what the participants value in contemporary life, while also honoring the traditional Vietnamese cultural values they’ve grown up with. The resulting photographs showcase a vivid interplay of color and motion, where the inner worlds of Vietnam’s youth blend with their outward expressions. Each image captures the dynamic fusion of tradition and modernity, revealing complex identities shaped by both cultural heritage and contemporary influences.

Duong uses clothing as a lens to reflect the inner worlds of Vietnam’s youth