Pottery Road awaiting donors
Tan Hanoi company, the developer of Pottery Road project, said it is unnecessary to complete the whole 6km road before the 1,000th anniversary of Hanoi, but the construction depends on funding.
An international exhibition and seminar on public arts was held on June 13-14 at the Hanoi-based Goethe Institute under the Ford Foundation’s sponsorship.
The major topic of this seminar was the Pottery Road project. The workshop also welcomed the presence and assistance of US individuals and organisations which are experienced in public arts.
Hanoi is facing a problem that Philadelphia, the fifth-largest city in the US, experienced 30 years ago: illegal graffiti. To deal with this problem, Philadelphia authorities hunted drawers and forced them to rub out their “artworks”. But this measure was ineffective because illegal graffiti works were redone at night. In 1984, the city founded Wall Painting Program, run by painter Jane Golden. This programme helped the city escape from illegal graffiti and become the capital of wall paintings. Philadelphia currently has nearly 2,800 wall paintings.
For public arts in Chicago, besides wall paintings, there are outdoor sculpture works and pottery paintings as well.
Santa Rosa city has an organisation teaching public art to young people between the ages of 15-21. This organisation has produced 130 benches, 19 wall paintings and pottery roads.
Experts of public art from Philadelphia, Chicago and Santa Rosa contributed practical ideas at the seminar.
Living in Nghi Tam village, near the Red River dike, painter Nguyen Thu Thuy saw the soil dike become a concrete dike in 2000. Her house is near a pottery market so she knew of the beauty of Phu Lang, Chu Dau, Hai Duong and Bat Trang pottery. The idea of decorating the ugly concrete dike with pottery painting flashed through her mind when she saw foreign public arts.
The idea was applauded at a contest to seek measures to beautify Hanoi in March 2007. Thuy’s project to build a pottery road was approved by the authorities in October 2007.
Jane Golden asked the community of Philadelphia what they wanted painted on their walls, and Thuy also met with residents of Yen Phu ward to introduce her project and received the support of locals.
She organised a painting contest for 500 students of a local primary school, An Duong, to collect the best paintings to “draw” on the Pottery Road. Similar contests will be held at the Hanoi Children’s Palace and the United Nations International School in Hanoi.
The first 100m of road was completed in February 2008 with patterns taken from the Dong Son civilisation.
The project receives support and assistance from international organisations and foreign embassies rather than local ones. There will be a section of pottery road with logos of donors.
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