The event attracted widespread attention from painters, lecturers, fine arts students, and those passionate about heritage and painting.
Building on the success of the first edition in 2023, the 2nd Vietnamese Cultural Heritage Through Painting Contest 2025 continued to affirm its broad social significance, contributing to diversifying and enriching forms of heritage conservation and promotion while spreading passion and love for cultural heritage within the community, especially among younger generations.
In the 13 months after its launch (from August 29, 2024, to September 30, 2025), the organising committee received 1,320 artworks from 990 authors. Among them, 111 artworks were from 59 artists who had also participated in the first contest in 2023; 85 artists were from ethnic minority groups; 249 were school-age participants; and 456 artists were under 25. The youngest participant was 6 years old and the oldest 84. The contest also attracted several entries from Vietnamese overseas students in Japan, Australia, and the United Kingdom.
This year’s artworks demonstrated great diversity in genres and materials, including 436 acrylic paintings; 251 oil paintings; 145 graphic prints; 105 lacquer works; 76 silk paintings; 46 mixed-media pieces; and 239 artworks created using pencil, ink pen, watercolour, pastel, giang paper, do paper, and other materials.
Speaking at the ceremony, Associate Professor, Doctor Do Van Tru, Chair of the Viet Nam Cultural Heritage Association, stated that compared with the first edition in 2023, this year’s contest saw a remarkable increase in the numbers of both participating artists and artworks (1.5 times the number of artworks and more than double the number of artists), demonstrating the contest’s growing prestige as well as rising public interest in cultural heritage, especially among the young generation.
Through the preliminary round, the jury selected 100 artworks for the final round, from which the best works were chosen to receive 1 first prize, 2 second prizes, 3 third prizes, 3 youth prizes and 19 consolation prizes, with a total prize value of nearly 1 billion VND. This is the first year the youth prize category (exclusively for students aged 6–22) was introduced into the contest’s award structure to encourage creativity and love for heritage among young people.
Later the same afternoon, the Viet Nam Museum of Fine Arts hosted the opening ceremony of the exhibition for the 2nd Vietnamese Cultural Heritage Through Painting Contest 2025 and launched a publication introducing to the public the 100 artworks shortlisted for the final round.
The occasion offered the public an opportunity to directly admire and appreciate the beauty of cultural heritage expressed through the language of painting, thereby fostering greater love and awareness for safeguarding and preserving Viet Nam’s heritage values.
