The Embassy of Denmark has announced, that they paln to fund the cultural information website Hanoigrapevine.com which is set up by a Canadian artist to popularise Vietnamese art to the public.
Hanoigrapevine.com went online in October 2007. It was operated and financed solely by Brian Ring, a Canadian artist who has lived and worked in Hanoi since 1996. The website provides cultural activities information to local and international art communities. Grapevine also offers information of artists and links to artist websites.
The Embassy of Denmark decided to fund the website because “an artist’s effort to work in difficult circumstances and his willingness to run a free website that open to everyone and to support younger artists should be strongly supported. The funding will support the website to expand activities and achieve self – sustainability in 2 years, from June 2009 to June 2011 with the total budget amount of US $ 17,000. Part of the funds will be used for the hiring of staff to help with the day-to-day running of the site, enabling an expansion of offerings, including the creation of a series of artist profiles, focusing initially on younger, less well-known artists with a view to creating a resource of interest to collectors, curators, researchers, museums, galleries and other artists.
Artist Brian Ring said “I am very interested in cultural and arts events in Vietnam, therefore, I set up a website to provide information for those who share the same concern with me, helping them collect all related news in a website instead of searching for information in different sources.”
The funding is an activity of the Danish cultural development assistance programme in Vietnam supported by Danida “Denmark and Vietnam Co-operation in Culture 2006 – 2010”.
