Above Untitled, from Home Work. (©Tessa Bunney/Courtesy of the artist).

It is estimated that 75% of Vietnam’s population currently live in rural communities, yet as the country moves increasingly towards urbanisation, and the value of land spirals ever upwards, many of these traditional farming communities face the very real reality that they will loose much of their land, and with it their very livelihood.

Over several extended visits between September 2006 and May 2008, British photographer Tessa Bunney explored the vulnerable suburbs and villages around the capital Hanoi, which over the last two decades has seen its population explode from less then one million, to over 2.2 million. These small communities, which are increasingly unable to sustain themselves from traditional agriculture, as their land is acquired for development, have through necessity ‘turned to the creation of various products in “craft” villages, which have become the meeting place between rural and urban, agriculture and industry,’ writes Bunney.

Whilst many of these craft villages date back several centuries, a few for one thousand years or more, others have been established far more recently, as farmers look for alternative ways to supplement their income. Each of the villages, specialises in a single product, ‘Often, it isn’t difficult to work out the speciality of each village,’ says Bunney, ‘as I wandered around the back streets of Van Phuc, the whirr of silk weaving machines could be heard from every house; in Tân Hóa sheets of noodles dried in the rice fields; in other villages whole communities could be found sitting in their doorways making various forms of the ubiquitous palm hat.’

Above Untitled, from Home Work. (©Tessa Bunney/Courtesy of the artist).

The village, and the changing nature of rural life, are themes at the very core of Bunney’s documentary work, and Home Work can be viewed as an extension of her earlier series, Moor and Dale (2004) and Hand to Mouth (2007), throughout these works, Bunney has frequently focused on small details, or utilised a close-crop, which when combined with her sensitivity of vision gives her subjects a dignity. Her vibrant photographs ‘reveal domestic spaces and lived-in realities that, like Walker Evans’ photographs of Southern States sharecroppers and their environments, are intensely “honest” and moving,’ writes Jane Fletcher.

The issues raised by Bunney are highly complex, on the one hand it is clear that the rural workers she documents would unquestionably prefer to concentrate solely on farming, yet necessity means they must diversify to survive, but in doing so they frequently pollute their environments, and suffer from illness’ associated with pollution, but the extra, albeit small income from the production of crafts allows them to survive, and as Michael DiGregorio suggests, ‘life in these villages will never be the same again.’

Home Work: Domestic Labour in the Suburbs and Villages in and around Hanoi, Vietnam is published by Dewi Lewis.