een giant Boeddha, built some 5 years ago on a peninsula near Đà Nẵng – in artificial light at night.
Terracotta Village & Park Thanh Hà
We visit a community that is running commerce in manufacturing and trading terracotta hardware, since the 17th century. Plain ceramics. Biscuit brand and no glazes. A sintered surface at the most. Ceramics for use, roofing tiles and bricks. In time grown into cultural heritage with the skills that you expect. You can find a variety in approach that family businesses show. Some choose the way of tourist commerce; others seek in a way that sometimes faces design. But everybody has to eat, so market will tell what profit they make. There’s no choice. In the past century there was a short period that the whole terracotta handcraft industry almost collapsed and disappeared. Many families inevitably had to look for other jobs.
One family risked his neck in a different way. Their children went out for study and came back to their native village and, with the help of Unesco funding; they built a museum next door, in which the history of their terracotta ceramics will be showed. In this way the museum will give the community a boost and traditional terracotta ceramics will survive. It has become a beautiful building with lots of possibilities to show this tradition and inviting other worlds, comparing notes.
We are asked by the Terracotta Park direction to contribute in our way to the ambition, preventing the Terracotta tradition from disappearance. From the connection with their village, they have built a space that shows its respect to local artisans, who, in their bound to the soil they live on, do what they are good at.
It’s their environment; ours falls in and tries to find its way to get in contact. We look for a link and together we watch the environment with new eyes. The world that is so familiar to the craftsmen and woman may provide new perspectives, when we see each other’s views. To line up two different cultures is a possible start to run something new. Patience and time on both sides is required to let it grow. In permanent contact we see what happens while working. Looking for new wisdom, based on the old. It’s quite a difference weather you work on raw material or on semi-finished products. Where is your source? What of your development in skills do you bring into a possible try to make something new?
We walked around for a few days and had a downright impressive, heartwarming and beautiful time together. We talked all day with one of the potters: Tuấn. Because we had an interpreter at our disposal, it became a far-depth interview. This conversation inspired us to work out a proposal for a cooperation between Than Ha Terracotta Park and us, as visual artists and professional guiders.
The plan now is to develop, together with the Terracotta Park, seminars and workshops for people from outside. Who want to stand still and reflect on what the basics of this ancient culture has to offer and want to experience the feeling of being connected with the earth.
The potter’s wheel, on which the potter makes his pots, shows some ancient wisdom. Hands scan the wet clay, the eyes focused on the center, from which form emerges, attention fully focused. It is about time that craft and audiences learn to take each other seriously again. All beginning starts as a glistening stream that meanders its way. The earth, dropped as clay on either side along its flanks. And at last, as a river debouching in the sea. The beauty lies in how to deal with full voltage difference. We will definitely go back to Việt Nam.
