The Collectibles: Collecting Contemporary Vietnamese Art

Tucked down a small alleyway in Binh Thanh District, a group of us are at San Art contemplating a series of seemingly unrelated works of art. There’s an alphabet primer embroidered with silver thread, children on a playground, what looks to be a color blindness eye chart and a student with his hand raised. Over

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Art and meditation

Drawing and mindfulness bring beauty to the ordinary… Here is how art and meditation fit together. Since I was about 16, I enjoyed sitting within a landscape to draw it. However, I would often spend more time searching for the most picturesque view than I actually spent drawing. I was so keen to produce a

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Grado Art Studio: Teaching the joy of painting

It’s a little before 3pm on a Tuesday afternoon as a little girl with a braided ponytail and a crooked smile skips into the sunlit room. Within minutes, she’s donned a paint- splattered apron and is seated in front of her easel, lips pursed in concentration as she paints an orange rainbow. The other easels

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Snap decisions: Collecting photography

Someone recently asked me: “Are photographic prints collectable? Can collecting photography be an investment the same way as art?” My answer is absolutely! And right now is a very good time to start collecting, right here in Vietnam. Across the world, 19th, 20th and 21st century photography have occasionally sold for millions of dollars at

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Behind the lens: meet Hoi An photographer Rehahn

If every picture tells 1000 words, there must be millions of words to the stories of Hoi An-based photographer Rehahn. It’s good to be Réhahn. This time last year, the Hoi An-based portrait photographer had about 6,000 Facebook fans. Thanks to a slew of press from the LA Times to National Geographic Online to dozens

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