According to organisers, 1968 saw a group of American military deserters go to the North Vietnamese mission based in Stockholm, Sweden, with a single objective in mind, to enlist in the same army that they had been drafted in to fight. Rather then joining, they were recruited for the country’s information war, particularly to use tapes, pop music, and political rhetoric to persuade other American servicemen to desert.
Their recordings were subsequently transported from Sweden to Vietnam by diplomatic bag and then broadcast from transmitters on the rooftops of Hanoi, along with other revolutionary bases in the countryside.
This installation work created by artist and filmmaker Esther Johnson, sound artist Nhung Nguyen, along with historian Matthew Sweet, serves to revive that circuit of communication a total of five decades after the event.
With contributions made by some of the surviving American deserters, Swedish anti-war activists, and Vietnamese journalists from the period, the voice of Liberation Radio once more speaks through the upcoming gallery which will be launched on May 28 in Hanoi.
Due to the overall fragility of the installation and the complexity in which to set it up, the gallery is only able to accommodate five people for each slot, the organisers said.
Visitors are also required to don a mask when visiting the site and make use of the hand sanitizer provided at the entrance due to the current complex developments of the COVID-19 pandemic.
