KVT – Back to Hoa Binh

KVT revisits the Muong Culture Center and ART UNDER THE ROOF

When I read about the Asia link International Workshop at the Muong Cultural Museum just outside Hoa Binh (a nice couple of hours drive from Hanoi…well that’s what it takes on my motorbike!), I knew that I had to go and take a peek at what the 60 or so painters, sculptors, ceramicists, and installation artists were up to.

What a great time it must be for the artists from 14 countries living in various Muong style buildings on the museum site, working and interacting together for over a week!

The Museum is set on a wooded and very peaceful hillside six or so km from Hoa Binh city (which in itself is a pretty peaceful spot as it spreads along the banks of the Da River) and since my last visit just after it opened last year, the museum site has grown more buildings. It has added a guest house, a restaurant area, a few stilt houses….which all look like they’ve been there forever. It’s the perfect spot to amble into and stay awhile…preferably a few days. There’s even a rustic swimming pool to wade and sit in on hot days or nice evenings with luscious vistas of mountains viewed through rainforest trees.

The sculpture park area (see my opinion bit here to see it as it was in its original glory) has become deliciously overgrown with bamboo, trees and vines and many of the initial sculpture works have begun to crumble, become smothered and seemingly aged, have to be peered at through a green tangle, or have become dust. Exactly as one expected they would become.

During this workshop more sculptures will be brashly added over the site and by this time next year they will also look as though they have been there forever…It’s a nice concept.

The artists in residence are apparently producing two works each…one to take up residence somewhere inside or outside the museum and one to be shown at a special…and I’d hint, unmissable…exhibition at the Hanoi University of Culture on 26 Oct (Sat).

If I had my druthers I would have liked to have been able to get to the closing ceremony of the residency at 5pm at the Museum on the 25th …but my few hours last Sunday spent wandering up and down and around the beautiful site, talking with various artists and volunteers, and seeing them at work, gave me a pretty good insight into the vibrancy and value of the residency.