Talented illustrators display their works

The illustrations by 15 Vietnamese artists are on display at Lotte Mall West Lake Hanoi. Photo of Nhã Nam Publisher.

HÀ NỘI — The best illustrations by 15 Vietnamese artists are currently on display in Hà Nội, a culmination of a year-long collaboration between British and Vietnamese partners.

The exhibition, titled The Return of the Spoon-Billed Sandpiper, showcases 30 illustrations by artists who participated in a workshop in Hà Nội with two UK artists, Jan Fearnley and Jane Buckely.

This project, a collaboration between the UK children’s literature development agency Pop Up Projects, Vietnamese Nhã Nam Publisher, and UK children’s publisher Simon & Schuster, involved a nationwide competition. The 15 selected artists developed a story from children’s writer Trang Nguyễn.

Trang Nguyễn’s story, also named The Return of the Spoon-Billed Sandpiper, is a new narrative nonfiction picture book text. It narrates the tale of a near-extinct bird species making a comeback in Việt Nam, thanks to conservationists’ efforts to restore and protect its habitats.

In Việt Nam, home-grown children’s picture books are rare. As a result, most Vietnamese children grow up reading picture books that do not represent the cultures and communities they are part of.

During a two-week picture book course in Hà Nội last September, best-selling illustrator Jan Fearnley, known for her 26 children’s books, and Simon & Schuster’s award-winning art director Jane Buckely guided the illustrators in developing their unique, diverse approaches to illustrating the story.

Each artist submitted four spreads from the 30-page story only a few weeks after the course.

“We hope that the exhibition and the workshop will help Vietnamese artists to be more confident,” said Đào Phương Thu, Nhã Nam Publisher’s head of Communication Desk.

“After the workshop, the artists will not be skilled in painting, but they will write a story to make a completed picture book.”

This exhibition allows each illustrator to tell one part of that story through 15 double-page spreads, presented sequentially, along with the text for those pages. And 15 additional pictures, extracted from the sequence as stand-alone pieces, are also presented throughout the exhibition.

The Return of the Spoon-Billed Sandpiper will be published by Nhã Nam, featuring the work of just one of the illustrators in this exhibition. The ultimate aim of this project is that all the participating illustrators will go on to make picture books that continue to reflect the people and places of Việt Nam and will travel beyond Việt Nam to reach young readers everywhere.

The exhibition was presented at the Royal Over-Seas League in London from November 24 to December 3 and at Manchester School of Art’s Vertical Gallery at Manchester Metropolitan University from December 11 to January 7.

Nguyễn Vũ Xuân Lan was a representative of the artists, and Nhã Nam Publisher’s representative attended the exhibitions in the UK.

The Hà Nội-exhibition runs until December 29 at Lotte Mall West Lake Hanoi, No272 Võ Chí Công Road. — VNS