It is possible to see many kinds of Vietnamese folk paintings are now in danger of being lost. In this midst, young people in the S River group have spent a lot of time and effort on the project to have the patterns and colours of Hang Trong paintings accessed into the digital environment, contributing to rich archives for those who want to explore a line of typical paintings in Hanoi.
Hang Trong Folk Paintings
Driven by the desire to preserve and develop Hang Trong folk paintings, S River Group, officially established in early 2017, is a group of young people in Hanoi sharing a special passion for traditional values. They gathered together to do a meaningful job, using graphic software to transform patterns and colours of Hang Trong paintings from traditional paper onto the digital environment. Through the research from various sources such as materials, books and fork painting experts and artisans, up to now, S River group members have collected nearly 2,000 objects including Hang Trong paintings, as well as some other types of folk paintings.
A S River group member is editing the painting on the computer.
“In Asian countries like China, South Korea or Japan, there are soft variants of traditional paintings which are completely identical to the originals and stored in digital archives. Meanwhile, in Vietnam, we have only done well in the preservation of original artefacts, but the process of bringing objects into digital archives has not really been popular”, said, Trinh Thu Trang, S River designer team leader. Digitalizing a Hang Trong painting which is drawn on traditional paper material involves in different stages. S River group members must first seek for the help of artisan Le Dinh Nghien to get the standard Hang Trong paintings, which are then processed through computer software to be transformed into soft copies and finally posted on the Internet for long-term storage. In fact, most of Hang Trong paintings have disappeared in the market due to loss of carving wooden plates. Currently, there is only Vietnam Fine Arts Museum retaining some rare carving wooden plates of Hang Trong painting. However, with advanced science and technology, storing digital artwork could ensure sustainability over time and eliminate external environmental damages. In addition, the patterns and colours of Hang Trong painting are digitalized into colour codes and vector-based images (which are shaped by mathematical equations to be industrially printed) and also used in the design of fashion, household appliances, furniture and handicrafts.
Under this project, S River Group hopes to contribute to promoting the typical Vietnamese folk paintings to international friends.
Tien Cuong