Exhibition “The Story of Yen Thai Communal House”

The exhibition is part of the “Craft Stories through the Streets” cluster of the Hanoi Creative Design Festival 2026, introducing the history of craft development from Village to Street in ancient Thang Long Ke Cho. The exhibition is open free to the public.

In this exhibition, artist Hoai Giang combines silk, sound, and silkworm cocoons in the installation “Mulberry Fields and Sea,” bringing the process of making the material into the art experience. Created in 2022, the curtain in the installation is made from 40 meters of silk, tied to the raising of 12,000 silkworms, the consumption of 300 kg of mulberry leaves, and 31 days from silkworm rearing to completion. From placing silkworms on trays and spinning silk to form cocoons to reeling, winding, spooling, weaving, and sewing, many stages contribute to the formation of the work. The sounds of the loom and spinning wheel, recorded at the workshop, continue to bring the rhythm of the craft into the display space alongside the silk material.

Tran Thi Hoi presents “The Mulberry-Picking Girl,” a triptych of silk paintings created in 2023 about the life of Imperial Concubine Y Lan, while also prompting a reconsideration of women’s role in history. The work connects the bijin-ga style of Japanese Ukiyo-e with Vietnamese folk motifs, is painted on silk, mounted on do paper, and organized into an installation composition. In “Childhood,” Thanh Huong brings the pig image from Kim Hoang folk painting into silk painting, together with images of children and nature, linking childhood memories with the cultural values that have nurtured many generations.

Here there are also a silk painting exhibition by Pham Thuy Tien and An Nguyen, UV-printed photography works by Nguyen The Son, woodcut works by Pham Hung Anh, a cluster of cut-steel works by Vu Xuan Dong, and an installation by Trang Le, continuing to expand the expressive media in the exhibition.