Numerous spring festivals kick-off in northern VN

A series of large-scale spring festivals kicked off on February 15 (the sixth day of the first lunar month) in many northern localities. 

Thousands of Buddhist followers and tourists nationwide flocked to the Huong Son landscape complex in Huong Son commune, Hanoi's outlying district of My Duc, on the day to join the Huong Pagoda Festival, the longest of its kind in Vietnam which takes place from the 6th day of the first lunar month to the third lunar month every year.

The Huong Son landscape complex has welcomed over 100,000 visitors since the third day of the first lunar month.

Going to the Huong Pagoda is a spiritual journey to the Buddhist Land – where the Goddess of Mercy leads a religious life. Visitors have sightseeing trips to pagodas, temples and caves and join ceremonies to ask for favour from Lord Buddha.

 An art performance programme within the framework of the Bai Dinh Pagoda Festival (Photo: VNA)
The UNESCO-recognised Giong festival also officially opened on the day. It is held annually between the seventh and ninth day of the first lunar month to commemorate Saint Giong, a local hero who sacrificed his life to defeat invaders. It is celebrated with processions, rituals, and performances.

In 2010, UNESCO recognised Vietnam’s Giong festival held at Phu Dong Temple and at Soc Temple in Hanoi’s Soc Son district as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

The opening of the Bai Dinh Pagoda Festival began activities to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Trang An Landscape Complex in the northern province of Ninh Binh, recognised as a World Cultural and Natural Heritage Site.

The 1,984th anniversary of the Hai Ba Trung (Trung Sisters) Uprising was celebrated at a ceremony at the Hai Ba Trung Temple special national relic site in Hanoi's Me Linh district on the same day evening. The Hai Ba Trung Festival 2024 kicked off on the occasion

Becoming Alice: Through the metal tunnel

Until Mar 3, 09 am – 07 pm, 
The Outpost Art Organisation, Roman Plaza, Tower B1 (Floor 2), To Huu Street, Hanoi

“Becoming Alice: Through the metal tunnel” is the second exhibition introducing artworks in The Outpost Collection, inspired by the magic of imagination casted by English author Lewis Carroll in his famed literary work, “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”. On a spring day, through The Outpost’s metal tunnel, the viewers are invited to “become Alice” upon entering a strange journey with countless playful characters and bizarre scenarios.

Entrance tickets: available at The Outpost’s reception desk (024.2226.6888)
Ticket price: 60,000 VND (standard); 40,000 VND (student); free (elderly over 65 and children under 6)

“Becoming Alice: Through the metal tunnel” features 13 artists from within and outside of The Outpost Collection: Trần Văn Thảo, Đỗ Hoàng Tường, Hoàng Thanh Vĩnh Phong, Nguyễn Thanh Trúc, Nguyễn Sơn, Hà Mạnh Thắng, Nguyễn Duy Mạnh, Lý Trần Quỳnh Giang, Võ Trân Châu, Lê Hoàng Bích Phượng, Dương Thùy Dương, Đỗ Thanh Lãng and Quỳnh Đông.

Exhibition “Desolation”

Exhibition: 11 am – 09 pm, 01 – 22 Feb 2024
A2Z Gallery, 24 rue de l’E’vhaude’, 75006 Paris

For Le Thuy, human have lost their connection with the earth through their relentless quest to make it their own.

A graduate of the Fine Arts University of Vietnam, the artist sees her work as a witness to the present times, reflecting contemporary events through her prism and her use of traditional Vietnamese painting techniques.

Thus, in her latest exhibition, Le Thuy expresses through her works the complexities of our existence, of danger, instability and the ceaseless quest for sanctuary. The artist recounts a two-part odyssey, exploring man’s tendency to seek solace in the midst of chaos.

Le Thuy is an artist based in Hoi An, Viet Nam. Graduated with a BA in Fine Arts, she has exhibited consistently, both domestic and international. Most notably, Hongkong 2022, Singapore 2016. Her recent solo exhibitions are “The Silence is Deafening” Vietnam 2020, and “Uninhabited” Singapore 2016. Her works are witnesses of the times. The artist believes that the desperate struggle to exist is reflected in the behaviour and origins of a people. Thuy expresses the anguish of the desperate, trampled and forgotten. The social, environmental and cultural neglect and exploitation that leave only mute echoes.

Exhibition “Happy Ever After” 

06 Jan – 20 Mar 2024
Floor 2, Mipec Long Bien, No. 2 Long Biên 2, Ngọc Lâm, Long Biên, Hà Nội

Wishing hundred years of happiness for newlyweds on their wedding day expresses Vietnamese people’s sincere desire for a lifetime of joy and fullfillment. What is happiness? What does it take to make us happy? These seemingly simple questions are hard to answer, since each person’s idea of happiness is conditioned by a different life journey.

Through the practice of art using traditional lacquer materials and experiments with different modern materials such as metals and synthetics, the limits of materials expand to change forms and spatial dimensions. These new techniques offer a visually rich experience, creating new emotional expressions and artistic concepts.

In this exhibition, I continue to develop the art project “A Thousand Portraits of Mattresses”, a fusion of sculpture and painting that I’ve been pursuing for the past 10 years and will continue to do so in the future. Displaying mattress artworks alongside traditional paintings of people, landscapes, and objects, I want to invite reflections of life and its essence, of past and present, of time and space, while embracing dreams and realities that humans bear.

The exhibition is not my definition of happiness but merely my observations and reflections of life through the lines, forms, and colors. It is my own searching as an artist of the essence of art, of beauty and grit, of happiness and suffering, and ultimately, the meaning of life.

Exhibition “The Middle Land”

Opening: 05 pm, Tues 30 Jan 2024
Exhibition: 09:30 am – 05 pm, 30 Jan – 20 Apr 2024
Artigin Art Space – Lotte Mall Westlake Office Lobby
683 Lac Long Quan, Tay Ho, Hanoi

A territory residing “in the middle.” Amidst the past, amidst the future. Between the edges of the tangible and the boundless. What we once understood about the contemporary realm now materializes as sudden occurrences, seemingly sensible yet rich in anomalies. A familiar obsession, seemingly empty and lacking in information.

This is where entities and events are no longer confined by nothingness, time, gradually evolving into mutated, distorted beings—creatures of the dream realm. They soar, transform, challenge each other.
They play, dance, conspire, tear each other apart in that condensed timeframe. They are mischievous, carefree in a manner that mocks the ordinary. They are unbound.
They are indifferent, attempting to cling to the old ego eroded and hollowed out by “The Middle Land”
What are they?
They are creatures from the restricted border area, flying like “chaotic locusts” through the spacetime of Lê Đăng Ninh.
They constitute an exhilarating virtual world filled with creatures, events that surpass the common sense of Đinh Quang Hải.
They embody the absurdly carefree, inexplicably innocent, and intriguingly mischievous narratives of Phạm Thái Bình within the highland stories.
They embody the silent, abundant yet wordless nature of Nguyễn Ngọc Liêm. Spacious, vast, gentle yet haunting. Familiar yet full of unfamiliar insecurities.
“The Middle Land” – month lost, year unknown.

The Disoriented Garden… A Breath of Dream

11 am – 06 pm, Tues – Sat, 12 Dec 2023 – 08 Mar 2024
Sàn Art, Units B6.16 and B6.17, 6th Floor, Block B Office, Millennium Masteri, Ward 6, District 4, HCMC (enter via Nguyen Huu Hao street)

Centred on the concept of the garden as a living, regenerative library, “The Disoriented Garden…A Breath of Dream” foregrounds the ecologies that devastate what is intimate and hallow. Through a multimedia installation of video, painting, and sculpture, the artist brings our senses into contact with Vietnam’s Central Highlands: a densely layered soundscape teeming with memory, ancestors, insects, animals, and plants imbued with agency, and varied residues of violent conquest or soft power.

Considering land as witness, the exhibition draws our attention to the overshadowed histories beneath our feet, and, in so doing, intricately constructs an immersive portrait of the geopolitical, environmental, and spiritual subjects contained within.

This exhibition was created as part of the Han Nefkens Foundation–Southeast Asian Video Art Production Grant, aimed at supporting the development of the contemporary video arts field for artists living in Southeast Asia. Premiering at Sàn Art, Tung’s show will also be presented at partner institutions across the globe, including Sa Sa Art Projects (Cambodia), the Jim Thompson Art Center (Thailand), Museion (Italy), Busan Museum of Art (South Korea) and the Prameya Art Foundation (India).

Born in 1986, Trương Công Tùng grew up in Dak Lak among various ethnic minorities in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. He graduated from the Ho Chi Minh Fine Arts University in 2010, majoring in lacquer painting. With research interests in science, cosmology, philosophy and the environment, Truong Cong Tung works with a range of media, including video, installation, painting and found objects, which reflect personal contemplations on the cultural and geopolitical shifts of modernization, as embodied in the morphing ecology, belief or mythology of a land. He is also a member of Art Labor (founded in 2012), a collective working between visual art and social/life sciences to produce alternative non-formal knowledge via artistic and cultural activities in various public contexts and locales.

Outdoor display of antique artifacts 

Until the end of 2024, Pleiku City, Gia Lai Province

An outdoor exhibition entitled “Tay Nguyen – Gia Lai Paradise” displaying antique artifacts of local ethnic people.

Highlights of the exhibition are a white elephant bone chair dating back 700 years and a collection of elephant hunting tools dating back more than 100 years of the M'Nong ethnic group.

On display are thousands of antique artifacts of collector Dang Minh Tam, including musical instruments, hunting and weaving tools, ceremonial objects, jewelry items and other items in the life of ethnic groups in the five Central Highlands provinces.

Exhibition “A Tide of Emotions”