De Retour, by Loan Nguyen

My father had never returned to Vietnam since his arrival in Switzerland 38 years ago. I was born in Switzerland. In 2005, after my father got his Swiss citizenship, we took two trips to Vietnam together and visited his native country. During these stays, I photographed the landscapes, the objects and the people we met as so many clues or signs of what still bound us to this country. I also photographed my father rediscovering familiar but forgotten places, meeting friends whose faces had changed as much as the country itself.

—

(“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always—
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.”

-T.S. Eliot-)