The exhibition would be characterised by a “tomorrow is too late” manifesto for non-apathetic artists who were burning to produce work that commented on the “emergencies of today,” said Thierry Geoffoy, creator of the Emergency Room, or E.Room. The approach would encourage work involving news media, collages, and lots of textual elements. Geoffoy compared the role of an artist in the E.Room to that of a newspaper reporter.

Artists would have to bring their work to the E.Room by 12:15pm. The work has to reflect a burning issue of the day, requiring participating artists to follow the daily news in order to create an effective interaction between their media and public events.

Meanwhile, the previous day’s works are moved to a “delay museum” outside of the E.Room, to make room for the new works. The E.Room exhibition will take place for about a month.

The E.Room concept has already gather ed various artforms, such as photography, sculpture, graphic arts and video art, to exhibitions in Berlin, Athens, Copenhagen, London, San Francisco, Barcelona, Helsinki, Stockholm and now Hanoi.

New York City artist Gail Rothschild, who has participated in the E.Room, recalled, “The job at E.Room helped build my habit of reading the Times, Reuters, BBC, and AP and pay more attention to social issues.”

But Geoffoy recognises that this concept may be more difficult to pull off in Vietnam.

“I see that some Vietnamese artists are still reserved and others don’t share the same viewpoints about art as us,” he said.” Not all artists are willing to open their hearts about social issues. One told me that he couldn’t hand in his work before 12.15pm because art needs time. But I hope that artists will learn how to do artwork like a professional ping-pong player with timely and sharp reactions.”

The exhibition space is designed a circle, he said, in the hopes that artists, despite different opinions, would meet each other on the common ground of artistic creativity. Through E. Room, artists can react every day. They scan the emergencies of the day and respond to their discoveries of conflict or discrepancies.

By being a constantly changing exhibition space commenting on current events, the E. Room creates a hotline to the public and the mass media, with new reactions everyday and new reasons for exhibition goers to tune back in, Geoffoy said.

The exhibition runs through November 28 with the participation of 24 Vietnamese and Danish artists, including Le Tran Hau Anh, Tran Hau Yen The, Nguyen My Ngoc, Nguyen Thanh Hai, Nguyen Na Son and Nguyen Mai Ky. Hannah Christina Heilmann, Peter Lind and five other Danish artists will participate.

This event is being supported by the Danish Embassy as one of the cultural activities celebrating this week’s visit to Vietnam by the Danish Queen.

Co-organised by the district People’s Committee and the Thang Long Kite Club, the event aims to mark 500 days left before the celebrations of Thang Long-Hanoi’s 1,000th anniversary which will fall on October 10, 2010.

According to Nguyen Ba Hanh, chairman of the Thang Long Kite Club, the flute kites have been made by artisans from Hanoi’s outlying districts of Soc Son, Dang Phuong and My Duc and northern Hai Duong Province.

The Thang Long Club will fly two huge kites, one attached with a 50m² piece of cloth called King Ly Thai To’s edict on the transfer of the capital in 1010 and the other linked to a 35m² national flag of Vietnam.

After this festival, the club will make a record 15m-long kite carrying the king’s capital transfer edict right on the occasion of Thang Long-Hanoi’s 1,000th celebrations in 2010, Hanh revealed.

Established in 1996, the Thang Long Kite Club is home to nearly 40 members, who have represented Hanoi to attend many national kite festivals and won high prizes.

The delegation, headed by the museum’s Director Chu Duc Tinh, held talks with the Director of Mexico City’s Historical Centre, Alejandra Moreno Toscano, who said that her city wishes to work with Vietnam to organise exhibitions and exchanges of art troupes.

Ms Toscano also suggested working together to preserve cultural works related to President Ho Chi Minh in Mexico City.

Isabel Molina, Director of Cultural Relations for Mexico City’s Mayor, used the occasion to ask the Vietnamese delegation to help the city organise a Vietnamese culture week.

During their time in Mexico City , the Vietnamese delegation laid a wreath at the statue of Ho Chi Minh in Freedom Park and visited a number of cultural and tourist spots as well as several of the city’s museums.

The book named “Discovering craft villages in Vietnam: ten itineraries around Hanoi” is a remarkable collection of writings on the vibrant communities surrounding the capital.

Spending several years working in Vietnam, the authors visited various craft villages to learn more about the crafts, the people, traditions and heritage of the villages. What they bring to the book is illustrated by photographer Francois Carlet-Soulages.

The book, the fruit of several years’ research, proposes 10 itineraries, blending potted histories, legends, descriptions of craft techniques, guided walks and maps, all designed to introduce readers to more than 40 craft villages located in Hanoi, Bac Giang and Bac Ninh provinces. Many of these are little known to outsiders, but none are very far from the capital.

The villages around Hanoi possess a rich cultural, architectural and craft heritage. Less than an hour’s journey from the capital are more than 500 specialist craft villages, producing an array of religious and artistic objects as well as food products, industrial goods, textiles, basketwork and much more. These traditions have survived many vicissitudes. Today, they constitute the basis of material, social and spiritual culture among the village communities of the Hong (Red) River Delta.

The artisans themselves and their local institutions perceive cultural tourism as a way of further improving the fortunes of craft village communities.

“They also see it as an opportunity to attract wider attention to their heritage but, until recently, few guides or tourists ventured into these villages, some of which are lost beyond a maze or poorly signposted roads and tracks amid the rice paddies of Hanoi’s hinterland,” the authors write.

The 300-page book published by the The Gioi (World) Publishing House costs VND200,000 for the Vietnamese edition and USD16.7 for the English and French versions.

The book’s publishing was sponsored by the Research Institute for Development, the Ford Foundation, French Development Agency, French Culture Centre in Vietnam, Wallonia-Brusssels Delegation to Hanoi and Hermes Group.