Born in 1977, Binh Danh was among the many refugees who fled Vietnam after the fall of Saigon and the rise of communism. With the hope of escaping the new regime, his family made the dangerous journey by boat, crossing treacherous seas before being rescued by Malaysian authorities. They were taken to the Pulau Bidong Refugee Camp in Malaysia, where they spent nine long months waiting for asylum. Binh’s father, skilled in television repair, leveraged his technical background to secure asylum for his family in the United States. In 1979, they resettled in San Jose, where they began a new chapter in their lives.
Growing up around TVs always on, Binh was fascinated by the screen’s moving images. He would also lose himself in calendars, catalogs, and magazines, playing with these images to transcend time and space. For most people of his generation in Vietnam, photography was not a big part of life; photos were taken only on special occasions.
It wasn’t until the fifth grade that Binh found his interest in photography. He brought a camera on a school camping trip, and from then on, he knew how to create strong images that narrated a story and touched on a viewer’s emotions. For Binh, photographs were different—a powerful fabrication of memories, pieces of time hand-picked and preserved. This early passion led him to pursue art during high school and later receive his BFA in photography at San José State University. “I didn’t learn about traditional photography and the big names until I went to college, but I knew when I was looking at these pictures of landscapes, I was just falling in love with them,” recalled Binh.
Early into his studies, Binh knew commercial and fashion photography was not the path for him; instead, he believed himself to be an artist who uses photography as a means to find deeper themes and ideas. One of Binh’s first experimentations using photography to explore deeper themes and ideas began with his BFA thesis show, inspired by the time he spent in his mother’s garden. It was there that he perfected his famous chlorophyll prints, which is a process of printing images directly onto plant leaves. These prints bring back memories of Binh’s travels to Vietnam, where, even decades later, the scars of war were still etched into its landscape. “Photography and art keep me going and even if the recognitions that I have received weren’t there, I would still do what I do. I am fortunate to have a job as an artist that allows me to teach making art, while having an income through it, allowing my studio practice on the side too,” Binh said.
Binh attended Stanford University for his MFA, continuing to perfect his craft and artistic voice. From 2004 to 2012, Binh taught as an adjunct professor at a few different community colleges while continuing to exhibit his photographs. In 2012, Binh’s hard work put into teaching and art began to pay off when he landed his first tenure-track position at the University of Arizona. In 2018, he returned to San José State University, where he continues to teach and create.
As a professor, Binh encourages his students to embrace the wide and multifarious possibilities of photography, including the use of artificial intelligence as a creative tool. Rather than viewing AI as some sort of threat to traditional photography, he sees it instead as a new extension of the medium that offers new ways to enhance and manipulate images. Binh doesn’t put tight constraints on his students—instead he lets them play with AI, believing only freedom can give the fertile ground needed for their artistic development and experimentation.
Binh’s expectations for his students are to not be afraid of, or discouraged by, the uncertainty of an art degree, but to see it instead as a part of the beauty of following a creative path. In the end he is trying to instill in them a commitment to creativity for the sake of using it to give back meaningfully to their own communities. Binh wants his students to have pride in their work, give the best they can, and graduate with the confidence in knowing they have grown as artists, ready to take on the world with a truly unique creative vision.
Binh’s relationship with Vietnam plays a big role in his life and artistic view. It wasn’t until the 2000s that he returned to his country of birth, and the experience was completely incomparable to those who had grown up in it. As a Vietnamese American, the country was both proximal and distal to him. “I didn’t think that I was coming home. I am Vietnamese, but I didn’t really connect to the land the way my parents did. Of course, I am connected through being a Vietnamese American and learning about the history of the war from which the influence is seen in my photography,” Binh said.
Binh’s notion of Vietnam was one of war—an idea that followed him all his life and into his career. While others drew upon personal recollections of the country, his knowledge of Vietnam emanated from the collective memory of conflict, loss, and survival through stories provided in photographs and history books. When visiting places such as the War Remnants Museum, where the history of the war is told through a government lens, Binh was struck by narratives of survival and rebirth. These stories deeply changed his art, building layers on top of his identity as both an American and Vietnamese artist.
“I feel like my work is about history, memories, and trauma. When you think of history you think of something in the past, but I think of it as something in the future.”
Simultaneously, it is not easy to address these themes of war, death, and trauma in his work, but Binh thinks that discomfort with history is necessary. For Binh, history is not simply confined to the past but is a living agent shaping the present and future. The combination of nature and history within his work reflects Binh’s ongoing exploration of the themes of memory, trauma, and the passage of time. “I feel like my work is about history, memories, and trauma. When you think of history you think of something in the past, but I think of it as something in the future,” Binh said.
The artistic practices of Binh vary from digital photography using film, to the daguerreotype. The daguerreotype is a 19th-century photographic process that prints images on silver plates, offering an extremely tactile and reflective quality. With his mix of historical techniques through modern technology, Binh offers work that feels timeless, in which past and present blend into one frame. This innovative approach he extends to his students. Blending historical techniques with the most modern technologies, he allows his students to practice photography without restrictions in its ever-changing landscape.
Photography for Binh is also a journey of always discovering and reflecting. Fresh from a trip to the Grand Canyon and about to embark on another one to Alabama, Binh has loads of work to process and research to perform. In Binh’s view, his legacy revolves around his photographs of national parks, which showcase the beauty of nature they preserve. From the scars of war and the beauty of national parks, to the delicate imprint of nature itself, his work speaks to the deep connections between memory, history, and the present. For Binh, photography is more than a profession; it’s a lifelong journey of discovery, storytelling, and reflection.
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