VietNamNet Bridge – Culture lovers can look forward to eight unique, modern and innovative cultural projects with an emphasis on a variety of subjects such as visual art, traditional and modern music, and Danish-Vietnamese cultural exchange and performances.

Man in the mirror: One of a series of paintings named Gay by Pham Tuan Tu, which won the Young Talent Prize from the Cultural Development and Exchange Fund.
The Cultural Development and Exchange Fund (CDEF) held their first board meeting of 2011 last week, in which they decided which cultural projects, within the scope of contemporary art, should receive support in the upcoming months.

The CDEF has so far received a total of 23 applications from prospective participants, including eight from Denmark and 15 from Viet Nam.

CDEF-funded projects, each worth US$3,500, are designed to promote new and modern culture in Viet Nam.

Projects supported by the CDEF must either promote contemporary Vietnamese art or a Danish-Vietnamese exchange of contemporary art. Furthermore, as part of a new, overall guideline for the CDEF, all projects must be innovative, modern and part of a new trend.

The CDEF has decided to sponsor eight projects deemed to be of a high enough standard to qualify, that will all be realised within the next year.

Global Sisters is a project portraying three women from Viet Nam, Senegal and Denmark, all born on the same day and year, by combining different kinds of media such as words, actions, images, movies and a webcam in an interactive form. The project will be launched and carried out at the Women's Museum in Denmark.

East Meets West, organised by the Hafnia Chamber Orchestra of Denmark, is a musical exchange project in which talented Vietnamese musicians will perform in Denmark as part of a joint Vietnamese-Danish concert. The world-renowned jazz composer Chris Minh Doky will perform with the orchestra as a soloist.

Lost in Vibration, another music project, will showcase the dan tranh (16-chord zither) in an experimental musical performance that will show new aspects of the instrument. The music has been composed by musician Nguyen Thanh Thuy and will be presented at shows in Viet Nam.

Contemporary Script will focus on the current life of farmers in the context of industrialisation, with industrial and construction sites emerging everywhere. The exhibition will take place at the Viet Nam Fine Arts Museum.

The next deadline for CDEF applications this year is August 15. For further information, applicants can contact the CDEF Secretariat at houlan@um.dk.

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News