Silk painting at the place where the wife of Singapore Prime Minister visited

Hanoi Silk painting in Van Phuc silk village, Ha Dong, is an activity that attracts foreign visitors, including the wife of the Singaporean Prime Minister .

On the afternoon of August 28, Ms. Le Thi Bich Tran, wife of Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh , and Ms. Ha Tinh, wife of Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, visited the more than 1,000-year-old Van Phuc silk village, which was recognized by the Vietnam Book of Records Center as "The oldest silk weaving village still in operation today" in 2014.

Van Phuc Silk Village, Ha Dong, where the wives of the two Prime Ministers of Vietnam and Singapore visited.

The two ladies experienced silk collage at Vun Art, a fabric painting cooperative located in the Silk Conservation Center at 16 Silk Street, Ha Dong District. At the end of the famous umbrella road leading into the village, a 40-square-meter room is where the cooperative’s silk paintings are displayed and sold, and where the two ladies directly collaged the paintings.

The cooperative was founded in 2017 by Mr. Le Viet Cuong, Chairman of the Disabled People's Association of Ha Dong District. Mr. Cuong said that the primary purpose of establishing the cooperative was to accompany and create stable jobs for people with disabilities. Currently, the cooperative has 35 disabled workers. In addition, the cooperative also aims to preserve and promote the cultural and traditional values of the nation as well as protect the environment through the reuse of Van Phuc silk to create unique and creative paintings.

The wife of the Singaporean Prime Minister collages silk paintings at the Vun Art Cooperative, Van Phuc silk village, Ha Dong, Hanoi on August 28. Photo: Giang Huy

Mr. Cuong said that the materials for the mosaics are scraps of fabric, leftover from tailors in Van Phuc silk village. Through the hands of disabled workers, the scraps of fabric that are no longer valuable are utilized, cut, assembled, and shaped into many different types of paintings. Most of the paintings are exploited from Dong Ho folk paintings, Hang Trong paintings, Kim Hoang paintings, and Sinh village paintings in Hue. In addition, iconic landscapes of Vietnam are also included in the mosaics such as Turtle Tower, Hanoi Old Quarter, and Ha Long Bay. The cooperative also creates paintings on many different themes such as animals, still life, flowers, and abstract works of art.

Ms. Le Thi Bich Tran, wife of Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, and Ms. Ha Tinh, wife of Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, combined paintings of two tourism symbols of the two countries: the Rooster and Hen Islet in Ha Long Bay and the Merlion Park in Singapore.

Truong Thuy Hoang My (33 years old), who guided Mrs. Tran, said that during the process of piecing the paintings, the lady was very excited because she also works in the garment industry. The lady strongly supports the use of scrap silk to piece together paintings, which not only helps save fabric but also creates creative and attractive paintings.

"After completing the painting, the wife (Prime Minister of Singapore) shared that she was surprised that simple pieces of fabric could be put together to create such a beautiful painting," Nguyen Thi Thuy Linh (32 years old), who guided Ms. Ha Tinh, shared.

The cooperative’s handmade silk mosaics are gradually becoming one of the souvenirs that many tourists, especially international visitors, love. Not only buying them as gifts, many tourists come to the cooperative’s facility to experience mosaics directly.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Khanh (58 years old), who guides tourists to put together paintings at the cooperative, said that individual visitors or groups of less than 30 people will experience at the cooperative's facility. For groups of more than 30 people, such as a group of students from a foreign university coming in early 2023, the facility will borrow the location of Van Phuc Temple to organize instructions.

"The largest group of guests the cooperative received was more than 100 people, we had to mobilize 80% of our workers to guide them," she said.

A silk mosaic painting must go through many stages that require meticulousness and patience to take shape. First, the painting is sketched and printed on paper, then cut out each detail. The fabric chosen for the painting is ironed thoroughly, coated with a thin layer of milk glue, then dried to make the fabric flat, durable, and stiff, making the cutting process easier and more precise. The paper details are glued onto the fabric and then cut along the edges of the paper. Each piece of silk is glued using a hot iron to melt the glue and adhere to the surface.

The most important and also the most technical is coloring the painting. "Portraits require color coordination to make the face vivid. Landscape paintings with many details are even more elaborate. Some paintings require the craftsman to sit and strip the fabric into small fibers, taking two or three days to complete," said Ms. Khanh.

Because the workers at the cooperative are all disabled, it takes a lot of time to instruct and many mistakes arise. Putting together a picture is not simple, but requires skill and an artistic eye to trim and connect the scattered pieces into a harmonious picture.

Normally, visitors will experience small kits at the facility, the details are pre-cut and glued. Visitors can also request to experience pasting the paintings with an iron or cutting and pasting at the same time, but it will take more time. Ms. Khanh was most impressed by a British female tourist named Stella who has lived in Vietnam for 10 years and "speaks Vietnamese very well". "She really likes silk paintings so every year she brings several groups of visitors to experience them. This year she has brought two foreign groups," she said.

Fabric paintings can be assembled into frames, on bags, shirts, wallets, pillows, and water bottles. The products at the cooperative are diverse in design and price. Bags range from 250,000 to 1.2 million VND, paintings from 700,000 to 3 million VND.

In addition to its activities at the facility, the Vun Art Cooperative also organizes classes and programs to experience making fabric collages and learning about traditional folk paintings at the Van Phuc Silk Ancestor Temple, the Hoan Kiem Lake walking street, museums, and universities in Hanoi. The Cooperative's workshops attract many students and families to visit and practice silk collages. In the near future, the Cooperative will continue to organize more workshops to widely promote the art of fabric collages as well as traditional folk paintings.

Article and photos: Quynh Mai

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