An-My Lê

An-My Lê first came to the United States as a political refugee from Vietnam in 1975. Her work explores the military conflicts that have framed the last 50 years of American history from an outsider's point of view. As both a woman and a refugee, Lê brings a perspective to war that is unusual in the male-dominated world of war photography. Her subjects include contemporary depictions of Vietnam's war torn landscapes, re-enactments of the Vietnam War staged in South Carolina and shots of US Marines preparing for deployment to the Middle East by play-acting scenarios in a virtual environment, constructed in the California desert. The recipient of many awards, including a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship and a New York Foundation for the Arts grant, Lê was recently featured in an episode of PBS's Art: 21.