Since 2005, Oh has explored the delta, and “Coastal Regions” is part of her ongoing series about this land and the resilience of its people. The shimmering tidal flats of Land Loss embody a portrait of inundated agricultural land, now given over to aquaculture and houses on stilts. The ostensibly bucolic Fishing in the Rice Field is an example of adaptation through necessity, as is A Shrimp Catcher in the Mangrove Swamp—the enigmatic study of an expressionless woman nearly submerged in opaque brown water, fully clothed.

Oh’s understated images appear straightforward but, accompanied by her succinct accompanying narratives, they take on vexed implications. The teenager in A Fisherman in the Tran De Estuary, and the painterly harbor scenario of Collecting Trash Fish each reflect the social and economic conflicts of water diversion and climate fluctuations. Oh offers insights through fragments taken from interviews and personal anecdotes: the government is urging a shift from rice-growing to fishing and aquaculture, because rising seas, erosion and use of soil to build roads are wiping out viable agricultural land—yet fish populations are dwindling. Fish-farming is problematic, owing to seasonal and tidal flooding; to counter these, dykes must be built. In Occasional Farmers, an elderly couple pose before their home; we read they are unaffected by flooding, thanks to a dyke that surrounds their entire province. Not so fortunate is a former rice farmer who now cultivates shrimp: in The Handmade Dyke, the man stands upon the thick greasy mud of his collapsed dyke. His weary dignity recalls American photographer Dorothea Lange’s portraits, taken during the Great Depression.