Exhibition on Vietnamese Tet culture held in Australia

The Vietnam Centre group in collaboration with the Vietnamese Student Association and Youth Union in Canberra organised an exhibition named "Happy New Tet", which took place in Canberra (Australia) from February 21 to 24, offering many experiences relating to the tradition of welcoming Vietnamese Lunar New Year.

Vietnamese ao dai and collar dress were introduced at the "Happy New Tet" exhibition.
Vietnamese ao dai and collar dress were introduced at the "Happy New Tet" exhibition.

This is the second art exhibition conducted in Australia by Vietnam Centre.

Founded by Australian alumni in 2017, Vietnam Centre is a non-profit organisation aiming to promote Vietnamese culture to the world, attracting more and more attention and participation in many fields of people, especially young people. Within the "Happy New Tet" exhibition, visitors can enjoy old-style woodblock prints, or lucky tigers - the zodiac of the year of the Tiger 2022.

A representative of Vietnam Centre said that the Tet holiday of the ancient Vietnamese people is not only contained in 3 days of the Lunar New Year, the Tet season commences before the first day of lunar new year and concludes after the 15th day of the first lunar month or ‘Tet Nguyen Tieu’ (First Full Moon Festival). People buy flowers, paintings for home decoration, or travel to the mountains, and festivals. In order to recall a part of that Tet atmosphere, “Happy New Tet” displays brilliant works, echoing the Tet and spring seasons, so that the Tet holiday can be enjoyed not only by Vietnamese people living in Australia but also by international friends, the representative of Vietnam Centre shared.

Exhibition poster.

The exhibition features many booths introducing traditional Tet cuisine and selected handicraft products, introducing Vietnamese antiques, as well as trying on traditional clothing and taking souvenir photos...

Dang Thuy Chi (First Secretary of the Vietnamese Embassy in Australia, an officer of the Vietnam International Cooperation Department under the Ministry of Education and Training), expressed that the works on display have high artistic value, recounting many aspects of Vietnamese cultural identity. These things are even more precious as the exhibition takes place overseas; events like this should be held all over Australia, to maintain and promote the national identity, so that people far from home can have better access to Vietnamese culture.