Hanoi in March ’24

The 2024 Meeting Point of Mekong Cultural Hub (MCH) on Art and Social Action was indeed a wonderful opportunity to forge connections, friendships and share knowledge among various art and cultural practitioners/ professionals from Asia. Designed as a multi-disciplinary networking platform, it focused on the short and long term perspectives of grassroots organizations and practitioners and made space for meaningful discussions on policy dialogues, exchange-collaborations, and future actions.

My interactions with the MCH team started as part of a curated fellowship programme in June 2023. Led by Jennifer from MCH and our group curator, Phloeun Prim (Cambodia), ED at Cambodian Living Arts, a team of five Asian practitioners (India, Malaysia, Taiwan, Vietnam, Singapore) delved into the ‘Life Cycles of Grassroots Cultural Organisations in Asia’ through months of investigation, contemplation, reflection, research and intricate portrayal of the regional cultural landscape of Asia – in terms of resources, motivation, processes of development and growth, and the complexity of realities the grassroots cultural and creative organisations face. As part of this, a dip-stick study of 21 organizations across 8 countries was done to get a range of observations from the field.

Meeting Point in Hanoi(opens in a new tab)

The deliberations culminated in the Meeting Point in Hanoi, in March 2024, which brought together other similar groups of professionals and artists from different parts of Asia, cultural practitioners and leaders from Asia Europe Foundation and UNESCO Bangkok (among others) weaving all the stories and activities into a deeply enriching 3 days conference. Many interesting sessions were held through highly interactive and participatory sessions on grassroots perspectives and concerns in the cultural and creative fields of work, issues of cultural appropriation at the grassroots, ways of initiating cultural diplomacy and networks for the same, applying localism to promote art and cultural activities, stories of diversity in Asian crafts, overview of status of the artists in Asia, etc. Above all, MCH provided a well-organized but informal and comfortable platform for people of different Asian backgrounds, professions, and age-groups to come together, know each other, share ideas of collaborations, forge connections and celebrate their diversity.

I personally learned a lot about mostly south-east Asian organizations and their cultural ecosystems, made great friends from different parts of the continent but mostly with my amazing fellow group members – Jennifer, Phloeun, Tung, Yoke Pin, Po, and Olivia!

Being in Hanoi, an extremely pedestrian friendly city ( a lot like how Kolkata used to be) was itself a great experience! It is a pretty city with vibrant tourism and culture. We got introduced, by our youngest team member Tung, a native of Hanoi, to the best of the local food, eateries and cafes, local ice creams, egg and coconut coffee (apart from regular Vietnamese coffee of course)! We watched the traditional water puppet theatre, visited the Temple of Literature and Buddhist temples, walked the old quarters of the city at night by the lakes and thoroughly enjoyed the fun, camaraderie, street dancing, and all other touristy vibes.