During the Vietnam War, United States military forces used chemical compounds called Rainbow Herbicides to destroy forest cover in Vietnam. These herbicides caused significant medical and environmental issues in Vietnam, which have largely gone unremedied by the U.S. government and the chemical companies responsible. An ecocritical, art historical approach to the visual narratives embodied in military photographs, photojournalism, and contemporary artworks surrounding Rainbow Herbicides, especially Agent Orange, reveals significant interpretive shifts in the history of this environmental injustice. This paper identifies and explores three interpretive categories: collateral damage, victimization, and empowerment. I conclude that contemporary art about Agent Orange reveals the power of artistic agency in shaping discourse. Through inter-visual reckonings with past depictions of Agent Orange, contemporary artists restore agency and dignity to the Vietnamese while also influencing related social movements.

Initial representations of Agent Orange consist of military photographs and propaganda related to defoliation operations. These images construed the Vietnamese landscape as necessary collateral damage and completely removed the effects on Vietnamese people from the narrative. Following the end of the defoliation program, photographers Phillip Jones Griffiths (1936-2008) and Goro Nakamura (1940-) attempted to reveal the environmental destruction and human deformities caused by Agent Orange in their photojournalism. Griffiths’ and Nakamura’s well-intentioned efforts inadvertently turned the Vietnamese victims into a spectacle for voyeurism in the popular consciousness, contributing to a counterproductive narrative of victimization. More recently, artists like Binh Danh (1977-), Thu Van Tran (1979-), and Dinh Q. Lê (1968-) have influenced a growing awareness of the long-lasting, complicated consequences of Agent Orange in Vietnam through their art. These three artists demonstrate the power of inter-visuality in artistic practice, as they counter the archetypal spectacles of victimization and destruction portrayed by their photojournalist and government predecessors. They have also anticipated significant turning points in Agent Orange discourse, as social movements demanding justice for the Vietnamese have increased in size and awareness in the past twenty years, ultimately revealing the important role art plays in influencing dialogue.