Creative Hubs in Hanoi, Vietnam

Introduction There are currently 295 cities designated as members of the UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) Creative Cities Network, an initiative launched in 2004 (Hanoi Department of Culture and Sports). These cities are expected to “work together towards a common objective: placing creativity and cultural industries at the heart of their development plans at the local level and cooperating actively at the international level” (UNESCO “Creative”). More specifically, one of the aims of the Creative Cities Network is to “develop hubs of creativity and innovation and broaden opportunities for creators and professionals in the cultural sector” (UNESCO Creative Cities Network). This UNESCO initiative emerged soon after Richard Florida’s influential “creative city thesis”. Florida’s thesis encourages the implementation of socio-economic development policies and physical design plans—by entire cities or specific urban areas—that attract and draw from the creative and art sectors, and especially the ‘creative class’. Focusing on the North American and European contexts, Florida credits the creative sector, rather than industry, for generating the economic growth that transformed post-industrial cities. Seeking to replicate this same growth in non-Western contexts, international consultancy firms and organizations—including UNESCO—have advised governments and municipalities around the world to follow this approach to foster creative activities. Despite a number of academic critiques of Florida’s ideas (e.g. Borén and Young; Gibson and Klocker; Peck; Scott), the creative city thesis is now “going global”, and influencing many policy-makers and politicians in Asia (Landry 100). This is not to say, however, that exciting movements were not already underway in such locales, driven by local enthusiasts. Yet the degree to which governments are taking these ideas on board has certainly shifted (see Ren for an excellent discussion of such synergies in Beijing and Berlin). Over the last two decades, large cities across the region have witnessed the rapid emergence of so-called creative hubs and districts (Hee et al.; Huabcharoen and Ellsmore; Kong). To date, studies on such spaces in Asia have largely analysed their role within the circulation and adoption of creative city policies by national or local governments (e.g., Kong; Lin and Chiu; Yeoh). This scholarship has pointed to the ways by which the development of urban creative spaces is advanced as a strategy to brand cities, increase their cultural production, and encourage economic development (e.g., O’Connor and Gu; Ooi and Lai; Yeoh). At the same time, the implementation of such policies is also linked to negative externalities and tensions regarding gentrification, censorship, commodification, and social exclusion (e.g., Currier; Hee et al.; Lin and Chiu; Luger). Within this context, Vietnam’s capital city Hanoi has witnessed the establishment of a number of small-scale sites devoted to creative activities since the mid- to late 1980s (fig. 1). Locally known as ‘creative spaces’ (không gian sáng tạo), these locales share a number of key characteristics with creative hubs researched elsewhere (see Gill et al.; Virani). Notably, Hanoi’s creative spaces are assembly points for a range of creative activities and people. Also, as is common elsewhere, they operate as local nodes in their respective creative communities, while supporting their affiliates and participants through mutual social support, and knowledge and information exchange (Pratt; Virani). To date, however, there has been relatively little academic research into Hanoi’s creative hubs (or those elsewhere in Vietnam), their motives for becoming established, and the emerging relationship between these hubs and the Vietnamese government’s newly adopted creative city policy for the capital (but see commissioned reports by Truong the Mapping of; Truong Mapping Creative Hubs, and Gasparin and Quinn on creative organisations in Vietnam). Our aim in this brief feature article is thus two-fold. First, we investigate the growth of independent creative hubs in Hanoi, focussing on their founders’ motivations for establishing the hubs, and how the hubs are meeting local creative demands. Second, we consider the possible tensions and conflicts emerging between the visions of these creative hub operators and users, compared to those of the Vietnamese state, with regard to what the city’s creative hubs should represent. We suggest that the state is now strongly influenced by Hanoi’s membership within UNESCO’s Creative City Network since 2019. To inform our analysis, between 2019 and 2021 we conducted an in-depth investigation of 10 creative hubs in Hanoi, focussing on their missions, activities, founders, and users. By drawing on two preliminary reports on the city’s hubs prepared for the British Council (Truong The Mapping of; Truong Mapping Creative Hubs), we selected our case studies to include different artistic orientations, length of time operating, and physical size. We included eight small, unifunctional spaces, and two large, multifunctional complexes, all of which began operations between 2009 and 2017. The hubs all engage in—or previously engaged in—non-mainstream cultural practices, including contemporary and experimental art. Given some of the hubs’ politically sensitive practices and discourses, we do not name them here. In the summer of 2019, while employed as a university research assistant, the third author, Celia Zuberec, completed semi-structured interviews with hub founders and operators (n=21), tenants (n=21), and users (n=36). These interview schedules were designed by the first and second authors, Sarah Turner and Danielle Labbé. We also interviewed three representatives from Vietnam’s central state ministries and two representatives from international organisations involved in Hanoi’s arts community. Additionally, Labbé and Nguyen N. Binh attended a number of meetings between creative hubs and representatives from the Vietnamese government and international organisations, including Nguyen being an observer at a high-level meeting with the National Assembly’s Committee on Culture, Education, Youths, Teenagers and Children (Ủy ban Văn hóa, Giáo dục, Thanh niên, Thiếu niên và Nhi đồng) in 2019. The objective of this meeting was to discuss the organisation and development visions of ‘creative industries’ in the city. Fig. 1: A small-scale creative hub in Hanoi. (Photo credit: Zuberec.) Note: the use of images from specific creative hubs does not mean that we completed interviews at these sites. To maintain confidentiality we visited a broader range to take photographs and complete observations. Emergence of Creative Hubs in Hanoi Since the mid-1950s, an affiliation with the Vietnamese state was a non-negotiable requirement for the establishment of any form of organisation in the country. Citizen-led groups or associations with no connection to the state were effectively banned unless given explicit authorisation to operate. Cultural activities were restricted to state-managed associations and venues, with the government being the only provider of cultural training institutions, and sponsor of art works. By maintaining tight control over cultural production, the government worked to limit the circulation of ‘subversive’ content and ideas, and uphold and legitimate its authority (Healey). With the onset of Đổi Mới (‘economic renovation’) in the mid-1980s, and following a rare moment of self-scrutiny when the government acknowledged its grip on the cultural sector had been “undemocratic, authoritarian and overbearing”, this situation began to change (ibid. 121). The government’s acknowledgement came with promises of new creative freedoms and signalled a relative scaling back of its control over society (Kerkvliet “Introduction”; Wells-Dang). Thereafter, new possibilities opened up for Vietnamese citizens to form autonomous groups, paving the way for the emergence of creative hubs in urban locales such as Hanoi. As this policy shift came into play, artists began to carve out their own scene in Hanoi. Supported by curators, collectors, and gallery operators, individuals started engaging more freely with artistic practices, media, and ideas, leading to the growth and diversification of the Vietnamese arts scene. Concurrently, other exhibitions and performances were held clandestinely in home-studios in order to operate away from the state’s gaze and its remaining censorship policies (Taylor). Driven by the impetus to “break from the establishment”, such private studios lay the groundwork for the city’s first accessible, non-government affiliated independent art spaces (Taylor and Corey 110). International cultural centres and foreign embassies also played a key role in the establishment of the city’s first creative hubs, by drawing on their social, political, and financial capital to support such endeavours (Nualart; Taylor). From the 2010s onwards, such spaces began to multiply rapidly, with a four-fold increase in the number of creative hubs operating in Hanoi between 2014 and 2018, a rise from 22 to 81 (Truong The Mapping of; Truong Mapping Creative Hubs). While the first creative hubs were mostly fine arts-oriented, they have since become more diverse, showcasing various contemporary, experimental and, to a lesser degree, traditional art forms. Broadly, these spaces can now be grouped into two distinct organisational structures, differentiated by their size and diversity of activity. The first model typically operates from a large multi-story, multi-room building, and brings together a diverse mix of artistic and commercial activities. Tenants rent or own spaces in such complexes, transforming them to fit their needs as studios, galleries, performance spaces, cafes, bars, and shops. This model—which aligns closely with the literature’s accepted definition of

Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.