moom bookshop

Photographer Stefan Canham contrasts eclectic buildings in the mountains of northern Vietnam with traditional Mien textiles. Women from the villages around the provincial town of Sapa sell embroidered patches of cloth to visitors from abroad. The influx of tourists triggers a building boom, rapidly transforms the whole region, and may lead to a sell-out of its unique material culture. Sapa is full of incongruities, and so is this artist’s book: minimalist, abstract-geometric textiles clash with baroque town houses.

The cover is lifted from another book, the glaring pink endpaper never quite disappears while you turn the pages. The text registers, but does not resolve, ambiguities.