The collection features distinctive images of Ha Noi in the 1990s, capturing everyday moments on the streets, in markets, schools, and factories, taken by British photographer Andy Soloman. Ha Noi in the early 1990s appears rustic and familiar through works such as Early Morning Exercise, Cyclo Drivers in Ha Noi’s Old Quarter, Dong Xuan Market, Vietnamese Heroic Mothers, and Delivering Bia Hoi by Cyclo.
Andy Soloman first arrived in Ha Noi in October 1992, at the age of 30, as a photojournalist. He travelled extensively, from the northern mountains and border areas to the coastal regions and Central Highlands.
His works focus on daily life, markets, villages, schools, hospitals, factories, and encounters along the way. The passage of more than 30 years that gives these images added value. They not only preserve the appearance of the city, but also reveal Ha Noi at a moment of transition, when traces of the subsidy period remained clearly visible as society entered a phase of rapid change.
As part of the exhibition, on October 10, photographer Andy Soloman will host a talk titled “Viet Nam in 1992–1993: On the Threshold of Change - A Photographer’s Journey,” at Metropole Ha Noi.
He will share the stories behind the photographs and share his journey, which began in 2022, to search for the people who once appeared in his frames. This led to the creation of the Continuum: Viet Nam project, which places images from the past alongside present-day portraits, creating a dialogue between two points in time more than three decades apart.
For Andy Soloman, the value of the photographs lies not only in places or scenery. What he wanted to preserve were the encounters. The people in the images enable this visual archive of Ha Noi to move beyond the limits of a personal memory and become visual slices of a city on the threshold of change.
Sofitel Legend Metropole Ha Noi has added the photos to its art collection under the name the Soloman Metropole Collection, marking the historic hotel’s 125th anniversary.
