Aaron Joel Santos was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana and has lived in Hanoi for the past two years. He is represented by agencies in the US and Europe, and his photographs have been shown in numerous international publications, as well as in galleries in the US, Malaysia and Vietnam. He enjoys warm weather, cheap drinks and good company, preferably all at once.
He is most interested in Vietnam's ever-changing urban landscape as a concept and not a concrete or definable thing. What we talk about when we talk about an urban landscape here is contradictory, steeped in culture and tradition, but moving with seemingly reckless abandon into a future that many people fear will represent a country weighed down by skyscrapers and sprawling suburbs, its history paved over like so many old alleyways. For now and for me though, this urban landscape is at the heart of Vietnam. It encompasses any and everything. It's rice fields and steel pillars. Rivers and roads. Young and old. Pretty ugly and whatever else you apply to it.
Urban's a strange word here. Hence his images. It's hard to talk about contemporary/urban Vietnam without talking about history and tradition and contradiction/juxtaposition. He is trying to illustrate that and show that narrative in these pictures. How urban can mean anything really. It's rice paddies and rising buildings; conical hats and concrete. A shout in the streets. Elusive if anything.
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