The Town

80 pages, 71 photographs
33 x 24,5 cm, Hardcover
English / German
Design: Michael Pfisterer
1st Edition, 350 copies, Hamburg 2021
Supported by Behörde für Kultur und Medien Hamburg

Photographer Stefan Canham contrasts eclectic buildings in the mountains of northern Vietnam with traditional Mien textiles. Women from the villages around the provincial town of Sapa sell embroidered patches of cloth to visitors from abroad. The influx of tourists triggers a building boom, rapidly transforms the whole region, and may lead to a sell-out of its unique material culture. Sapa is full of incongruities, and so is this artist’s book: minimalist, abstract-geometric textiles clash with baroque town houses. The cover is lifted from another book, the glaring pink endpaper never quite disappears while you turn the pages. The text registers, but does not resolve, ambiguities.