BOUCHER Mélissa

It is rather pleasant, this feeling of losing one’s bearings with the first few steps – to be disoriented; to pass through these scenes at night, as an urban rambler. Little by little, a kind of nocturnal ritual appears.
On the stretch of Nguyen Hue Avenue in Saigon and along the promenade by the lake in Hanoi – in the shade of its lights, the expanding modernity welcomes a youth of uncertain belonging, nonchalantly looking towards the future.
A stranger in these places, I sauntered and latched on to details, seeking the secrets of this generation – reading them in seemingly insignificant gestures, a code unknown to me.
The lyricism of mingling illuminates these scenes of friends, their mopeds parked on the sidewalk – among altars, streetlights, high-end shops and luxury hotels; amid the momentary interaction with street vendors, and the laughter of girls wearing only a long American-style t-shirt.
Amid the noise of cars honking and mopeds roaring the night is never peaceful, but there is something palpable in the air – the serenity of resumption, this sensation of humidity and the cool evening air after a storm.