The French School of Asian Studies (Ecole Francais d'Extreme Orient - EFEO) and the Museum of Fine Arts of HCM City are jointly holding the exhibition Vietnam Through a Lens consisting of 100 photographs selected from a collection of more than 50,000 old photos of the Vietnamese collection at EFEO.

The exhibition, produced by Paris Museum, was shown at the Cernuschi Museum in Paris from March 14 to June 29 last year, before moving to Hanoi at the French Institute (L'Espace) and the National Museum of History from December to March this year.

From 1933 until 1959, the EFEO has enlisted the services of a professional photographer, Jean Manikus, assisted by Nguyen Huu Tho. Together, they collected 50,000 pictures. When the EFEO left its headquarters in Hanoi, a copy of this legacy was sent to Paris where the new headquarters was established in 1961. More than 200,000 photos are stored there.

Founded in 1900 in Saigon and then moved to Hanoi in 1902, the French School of Asian Studies is a public institution handling scientific and cultural research on Asian civilisations, which aims to support high-level academic research in the social sciences and humanities.

Through its 17 centres in Asia, including India, Japan, Indonesia, Cambodia and Vietnam, important field research is conducted in archeology, philology, ethnography, history, linguistics and heritage conservation.

Wandering through the exhibition, the viewers will be able to discover Vietnam as it revealed through the eyes of historians and scientists during the first half of the 20th century.

The exhibition will be held until June 28 at the Museum of Fine Arts, 97A, Pho Duc Chinh street, District 1, HCM City.-VNA