Captions

Patients at Work at the Vôi Asylum outside Hanoi, c. 1930s

This photograph was taken at the Vôi asylum outside Hanoi, shortly after it opened in 1934. The second asylum to open in the French colony, like its predecessor in southern Cochinchina, Vôi was organized as a large agricultural colony, where patients would work the land on the path to healing and eventual liberation. By simulating the appearance of freedom and normal life, the asylum as agricultural colony projected a vision of an idealized colonial order........

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