Frans Lanting, “Jungle River, Borneo,” 1991, LightJet print.

Based on this knowledge of collaborative work, the La Than Imperial Embroidery project moved forward with the assurance that great contemporary nature photography could find new meaning and a broad audience in the idiom of Vietnamese hand-sewn embroideries. Working together with La Than, three world-renowned nature photographers, Lanting, Christopher Burkett and Robert Turner each selected one image that could best be transformed into embroidery. The first photograph selected, Lanting’s “Jungle River, Borneo” 1991, explores the mysterious world along a twisting river in Borneo, where the filtered sunlight and mist nourish the lush flora. In Burkett’s selection, “Glowing Autumn Forest,” 2000, light tunnels through a Virginia forest like a kaleidoscope, revealing the drama of summer’s end. Turner’s “Alpenglow on Hurricane Ridge,” 1998, captures the celestial mountain light first identified by pioneering naturalist John Muir.

The embroideries, which can take up to a year to produce and are slated for prospective museum exhibitions that are currently in discussion (the Museum of Arts & Design in New York is considering an exhibition), are mounted in handcrafted hardwood frames. The original photographs will hang in matching frames alongside the embroideries. The embroidery team consists of eight highly trained artists: Six specialize in needlework, one selects thread colors and one draws and colors the template for the embroidery. Every detail is coordinated under the watchful eye of studio director Nguyen Thu Ha. The images are transformed from photograph to embroidery through the artists’ understanding of what the Vietnamese call the “soul” of a space: the overall light, texture and spatial ambience of each photograph. All fine embroidery is a sort of alchemy, transforming sewn silk and cotton into the material it depicts. But these three works perform a special magic: the transformation of thread into the foliage and geography of some of Earth’s most treasured places by revealing the unifying mood among the details.