The deck of cards is a product in a collection and exhibition, which took place in Hanoi in June. Each work is a different world sparkling with joy from small things.
Pham Duc Viet has a habit of blowing when accidentally being touched. So “blowing” is also the name of his work, using a felt pen and needlepoint pen on paper to draw flowers. At that time, Viet was practicing drawing in Tohe class. He always sat attentively and observed for some time before putting his brush to work. Every stroke of the pen requires high precision. If he dislikes any detail, an X will be marked in that position. When the teacher asked to change the X marks into flowers, he agreed and planted small flowers in them. Viet's paintings clearly show his careful, meticulous, and neat personality.
Lee Nguyen SaeHae has a special love for cartoon characters. She is very curious about the world, loves to travel and remembers the names of the streets. With good feature memory ability, she can instantly animate real characters or objects. SaeHae often cuts out the characters she draws and asks “Are you hurt?” After learning the word “heal”, she attached the cutout characters and patted them.
Each autistic child has a unique personality. Dinh Dang Long has a passion for logos of domestic and international television channels. Whenever he sees the logo on TV, he carefully and painstakingly copies it. Long memorised and drew them everywhere. His favourite is the logo of Vietnam Television, so Long often calls the logo “VTV”.
In 2023, Dinh Dang Long’s installation was a bed full of TV channel logos that he memorised and drew. This year, his works are paintings of relatives with TV channel logos. Long has crafted his creative style, marking his artistic practice.
As for Nguyen Khanh Huyen’s interactive installation work, Na brings together drawings of her hugs with people. To depict tight hugs in Huyen's way, artist Mai Chi created an installation with fabric and stuffed dolls, taking the shape of Huyen's paintings. To feel the hugs, viewers will take off their shoes, step in and sit down in those soft, floating arms.
After 18 years of accompanying and organising playgrounds and art training programmes for children with special needs, including the autism spectrum, Tohe Social Enterprise has worked with more than 3,000 special children from 50 centres nationwide. This year, Tohe has brought a new approach to the public, each work suggests slices that recreate the life stories, habits, personalities, hobbies, interests, and concerns of autistic children.
Curator Trinh Ngan Hanh shared, that every year, there is only a display of paintings but this year, the exhibition divides interactive areas so that visitors can easily access and better understand the world of autistic children, as well as the family environment that nurtures them.
The exhibition emphasises the two-way interactive relationship between autistic children and their families, schools, and communities. In addition, inside the exhibition there is a small corner displaying fashion products, such as bags, wallets and notebook covers, selected, designed and applied to products from paintings by autistic artists.
The art has opened up a space for visitors to feel some of the disorders inside autistic children, understand the difficulties and clumsiness in controlling body movements, and the need to find a connection with the environment, to adapt and interact around them.
