The early work of the IAP drew on the arts and artists to create a bridge between the United States and Vietnam. In 1988, the conditions and needs were considerably different than one finds
today. Vietnam was still trying to recover from nearly one hundred years of French Colonial occupation and more than thirty years of devastating wars against Japan, France, the United States and China. The economic conditions were extremely poor and life was very difficult. There were no private businesses and everything was under strict government control. In spite of the fact that the Vietnamese government established its “Doi Moi” open door policy in 1986, it was slow to catch on. There were no private galleries and only one museum, the Vietnam Fine Arts Museum in Hanoi. Artists lacked access to good art materials and were only able to travel to other socialist countries. The United States continued to impose a damaging trade embargo against Vietnam and did not establish diplomatic relations until 1995, twenty 
years after the American War ended.

During the summer of 1987, seven years before the lifting of the U.S. trade embargo and eight years before the normalization of relations, David Thomas, IAP founder and Director, traveled to Vietnam with a group of educators under the aegis of the U.S. Indochina Reconciliation Project. This was his first return to Vietnam since serving as a U.S. Army combat artist/engineer in Pleiku, South Vietnam, in 1969-70. During this trip Thomas met with then Deputy Director of the Vietnam Fine Arts Museum, Mr. Nguyen Van Chung, and the idea for the first major cultural exchange project between the United States and Vietnam took root.

Thomas returned to Vietnam during the summer of 1988 and met with officials in Vietnam to continue discussions for an exhibition that would contain twenty artists from each country in an exhibition about the American War in Vietnam. The result of these discussions was the internationally acclaimed exhibition “As Seen by Both Sides: American and Vietnamese Artists Look at the War”. This exhibit marked the beginning of the IAP.

The American art work was selected by artist, Lois Tarlow, photographer and Vietnam Veteran, Bill Short and artist and Vietnam Veteran, David Thomas. The Vietnamese artwork was selected by David Thomas with the assistance of the Ministry of Culture in Hanoi and the Fine Arts Associations in Hanoi, Hue, Da Nang and Ho Chi Minh City. 

This exhibition opened in the Boston in 1989, and traveled to seventeen U.S. venues and three National museums in Vietnam, closing in Ho Chi Minh City In 1994. As far as we know, this was the first time that a serious attempt was made for the people of both countries to see and hear the art and voices from the “other side”.  A fully illustrated 128 page color catalogue accompanied the exhibition and copies of this catalogue are available. Please refer to Contact Tab.