Historical architectural works, squares, fountains become the backdrop for contemporary cultural life. Cultural heritage and public space are no longer just for sightseeing, but become places for people to meet, stroll, take photos, and enjoy art. Heritage is illuminated, recounted in the language of the new era.
On Book Street, music echoes in the "Book and Night Culture Festival". Simple stage, orchestra sitting close together, audiences sitting on familiar blue plastic chairs. There is no clear boundary between performers and listeners. This is where performing arts meet the community, where culture lives by closeness, by moments of direct sharing, where the sound of instruments and singing blends into the rhythm of urban life.
On large stages, cinema and audiovisual arts showcase the power of technology and the market. Events, launches, talk shows or concerts attracting thousands of people show that culture has become a real economic sector.
Recently, the A80 concert is a clear example: Music, performance, collective memories and modern technology blend together, creating a common experience for many generations, creating a smooth connection between the past and the present.
Parallel to that splendor are quieter spaces. In the exhibition room, viewers stand in front of the work, light reflects on the glass surface, human shadows overlapping images. The display spaces of fine arts and photography create slower questions: What are we looking at, and are we really stopping to look? The cultural industry not only creates products, but also creates space for contemplation.
In today's cultural industry context, water puppetry also has its own position as both a heritage and a performance product, with depth of memory. Water puppetry shows that the cultural industry does not necessarily have to replace the old with the new, but can let the old continue to live, in a different form.
Far from the city center, in a small room, an artisan is engrossed in his nail paintings, or in a house in an old apartment building, another artisan is proud of his handicrafts - products. Handmade works are hung all over the walls, both traditional and bearing personal imprints. Design and creative handicrafts exist persistently based on creativity, talented hands, patience and time.
All those pieces about performance, heritage, audiovisual, fine arts, handicrafts, combined into the story of today's Vietnamese cultural industry. It also has a difference in stature, scale between reality and desire, between central and sideline activities but are on a strong development path, evoking hope for a rich cultural life, a place of creativity not only to watch, but to live together.
