Over recent years, museums in Da Nang have witnessed a growing number of valuable artifacts donated by researchers, collectors and artisans across the country. This highly meaningful deed helps museums to diversify and enrich the sources of materials and artifacts on display to the public, and at the same time, contributing to the preservation and promotion of the precious traditional cultural and artistic heritage values of the homeland and the country at large.

Deputy Director of the Da Nang Department of Culture and Sports Ha Vy (right) presents a certificate of merit to researcher and collector Nguyen Thi Thu Hoa in recognition for her outstanding donations to the Da Nang Fine Arts Museum. Photo: X.D

The highly-practical donation of artifacts to museums has been going on for many years and is increasingly thriving, attracting a large number of voluntary donors all over the country.

The Da Nang Fine Arts Museum has, since its establishment in 2016, received nearly 1,200 donated artifacts. Since the start of 2022, this museum has received 262 artifacts in donation that have been treasured by artists, collectors and artisans for many years.

In particular, the museum received 240 folk paintings in donation by collector Nguyen Thi Thu Hoa, the Director of the Ha Noi Museum of Ceramics. These artifacts included Hang Trong, Kim Hoang and Dong Ho folk paintings, Hue hand-painted world maps and glass paintings, all of which were collected for decades by Ms Hoa.

Most of the paintings in this collection were made by famous artists of traditional painting villages with a long history of development in Viet Nam. Among them are many large-format paintings with high aesthetic value like the set of To Nu, Nghe and Kieu paintings.

Revealing the reason that prompted her to make such a donation, Ms Hoa said that the Da Nang Fine Arts Museum is one of the museums with a large area, located in the city centre, which make it easier for the general public to pay visits. Also, in the museum, there is a space for the display of Sinh village folk paintings. Therefore, she decided to make the donation in a bid to help enrich the museum's folk paintings so that it can better serve visitors.

According to Ms Hoa, the donation aims, first of all, to help the artifacts to be preserved for a long time and have favourable conditions to effectively promote their values, thereby spreading the movement of donating artifacts and mobilising the community's cooperation and engagement in heritage conservation.

“I will continue to collect more artifacts and donate them to the Da Nang Fine Arts Museum so as to complete the national folk painting system here. I believe that, with expertise, capacity and dedicated staff, the museum will preserve and promote these artifacts well, thereby spreading traditional cultural and artistic values to the public”, said Ms. Hoa.

A Kim Hoang folk painting - one of the artworks that the Da Nang Fine Arts Museum has just received from researcher and collector Nguyen Thi Thu Hoa

In a similar vein, at the Da Nang Museum, the donation of valuable objects has been launched since 2012 and such a highly-practical deed has brought practical effects.

During the past time, there were many campaigns during which documents and artifacts were donated to the museum in order to diversify display activities, meet the growing public needs of enjoying cultural values.

As reported by Deputy Director of the Da Nang Museum Phan Cong Hai, over the past decade, the unit has received more than 100 revolutionary artifacts and war memorabilia from organisations and individuals. Among them were many artifacts that show of great values.

Particularly, since the start of 2022, the museum has received 27 documents and artifacts from 9 voluntary individuals. “With its responsibility, the museum will effectively store and fully exploit the time-honoured value of donated artifacts. This is also a way of respecting the past, and at the same time serving the education on historical traditions, arousing national pride in each Vietnamese person. The museum is now looking forwards to receiving more support from the community in this donation campaign. Because each delay at this time can cause a precious object to be damaged or lost”, said Mr. Hai.

According to Deputy Director of the Department of Culture and Sports Ha Vy, in recent years, the conservation and promotion of the city’s heritage values has made many positive changes. In particular, local museums have drawn a lot of public attention in many aspects, especially the participation of domestic and foreign authors and collectors in artifact donations. This is a very meaningful act, contributing to enrich the collection of documents and artifacts of museums.

For donated artifacts, the cultural sector always seriously evaluates the historical, artistic and economic value of the heritage, and in tandem with mapping out appropriate exhibition plans for each time and object in order to maximise the received heritage.

“We hope that in the coming time, all levels of authorities, social organisations and people will pay more attention to the values of the city’s cultural heritage, bringing them into the socio-economic life in a better manner”, said Mr. Vy.

Reporting by XUAN DUNG - Translating by A.THU