The Open Heart Exhibition, featuring 15 paintings by autistic children, will be held from June 2 to 4 at the Pan Pacific Hanoi Hotel. The exhibition is organized by Pan Pacific Hanoi, Dr. Do Thuy Nga, founder of the Hope Center (raising autistic children), and artist Dinh Cong Dat, to bring the "voice" of autistic children closer to the community.
Drawing time for autistic children at Hope Center with artist Dinh Cong Dat
Mr. Dinh Cong Dat, who "teaches drawing" to the children, shared: "It's not right to say that I teach drawing. It's playing with children, sharing my joy of drawing with them." During this process, he had to learn the personality of each autistic child with different ways of communicating. Some children don't speak, just use symbols; some children read the names of colors in English, if called "nu" it means blue, "lau" means yellow.
Not all children can sit and draw for long, and Mr. Dat has to guess that. "When we draw, they are happy. But the longest they are happy is only 30 minutes, the rest stop after 10-15 minutes, we have to guess that threshold. We don't just play and share the joy, we have to understand their joy," he shared.
Artwork in the exhibition to raise funds for Open Heart
Therefore, the drawing game with autistic children is like a relay. "Each child sits in front of a canvas, but takes turns. If you ask who drew this picture, you wouldn't know. Each child holds a pen of a certain color and then paints, the color is taken by me, continuously like that," said the artist. During the process of changing colors, some children he gives out the pen himself, some he has to ask if they want to change the color, if the child doesn't object, it means they agree. The works of autistic children at the Hope Center have a lot of blue. According to the artist, this is a strong color, when appearing in the painting, it will create a good visual effect.
THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WAY TO LOVE
Autistic children often have difficulty communicating. We can use art as a way to express love and communicate with them. It also gives them equal access to art like other children. One of the most beautiful ways to love is perhaps to do art activities with them, including painting, music , etc.
Autistic children’s exhibitions have been held many times. I personally have also held three exhibitions of paintings and sculptures of autistic children in Hanoi. The number of exhibitions itself proves how meaningful they are, how beneficial they are to the children’s health, that’s why the organizers have done so many.
Artist Le Thiet Cuong
Dr. Do Thuy Nga organizes many special drawing classes for such children. "We just want people not to forget them. The most frightening thing is that the center becomes invisible, they become invisible... We want to remind them that they are still there, don't pretend that autistic children don't exist," said Mr. Dat.
The children’s works are expected to be auctioned to raise funds for the Open Heart Fund. In addition, to raise more funds and call for community support for autistic children, the exhibition will also display four works of Flowers on Do paper by artist Dinh Cong Dat and Cat on Lacquer Plate by artist Dinh Quan.
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