On the morning of 15th May, at Lai Xa hamlet, Kim Chung commune, Hoai Duc district, Lai Xa photo museum was officially inaugurated. This is the first museum invested and exhibited by a hamlet community to introduce the tradition of a craft village – the photograph craft village.
Delegates at the ribbon-cutting ceremony of Lai Xa photograph museum.
Lai Xa photograph museum was located in the middle of the hamlet, next to Dum communal house, two-storiedly built on the total area of about 300m2.
Lai Xa photograph museum displayed some 150 photos, 25 introductory papers and 150 objects. Its graphic designs were professional and the languages used in the museum were in Vietnamese and English.
The museum started with its exhibit of the preamble and 6 main topics, namely: Reinstalling a symbol of the old photograph room, the village’s photograph predecessor, old photo shops, photograph house keepings, worship photo, potrait, potraits of the artists, lighting art, coloured photo, reporters, artists, Khanh Ky photoclub and nowaday photoshops.
Lai Xa photograph museum focused on telling the story of photograph craft in Lai Xa. That was about the village’s craft forefather Mr. Nguyen Dinh Khanh, or alias Mr. Khanh Ky who had developed the first photo shops in 1892 on Hang Da street and famous photo shops set up by other Lai Xa people along the S shape land strip during the most prosperous time – the 20th century.
Viewers would memorize themselves the state subsidized period, when the photo shops were gathered into photograph cooperatives. It was the time “one must wait a chance to be well dressed for photo taking”.
The museum was also a place to share the cameramen’s stories. Such a way of displaying had deeply moved Lai Xa people and visitors when coming to this museum.
The museum had allocated a private space, regularly updated and introduced the berutiful pictures taken by Lai Xa’s present photographers.
Lai Xa people wished that their photo museum together with Nguyen Van Huyen museum, with the village’s fortes in traditional heritages would contribute to turning this place into a tourist site – the new craft village of Ha Noi.
Lai Xa village is belonging to Kim Chung commune, Hoai Duc district, Ha Noi has been recognized as a birthplace of Viet Nam photo arts. Lai Xa village’s photograph craft had experienced brilliant growth in early half of the 20th century. In 1892, Mr. Nguyen Dinh Khanh (born in 1874), of Lai hamlet, opened the first portrait shop in the name of Khanh Ky in Hang Da street (Ha Noi). Starting from this photo shop, it had been expanded to more than 150 in all over the country, hiring more than 2,000 photographers, and its presence most concentrated in Ha Noi with 34 shops, 35 shops in Ho Chi Minh and other places.
By Phuong Uyen