The vision of VFCD 2020 – an interview with Prof. Julia Gaimster

The vision of VFCD 2020 – an interview with Prof. Julia Gaimster

Intro:

RMIT Vietnam is taking the pioneering active role in creating the Vietnam Festival of Creativity & Design, together with UNESCO, VICAS and COLAB Vietnam. What is the motivation and vision for this Festival? This interview with Prof. Julia Gaimster, Dean of School of Communication & Design, Dean of School of Science and Technology will bring you some inspirational information.

What can we expect from VFCD 2020? What’s new about this year’s edition, compared to last year’s?

This year we are expanding the scope of the Festival to include a wider range of creative activities including performance and music. We are also making it a national festival focusing on three major cities – Hanoi Hue and HCMC.
The majority of the festival will be online enabling a wider audience to participate and for contributions from other countries such as Australia

How would you describe VFCD to someone who has never heard of it?

The festival is a “coming together” of people who are interested in creativity and culture in Vietnam- both traditional and contemporary – it is a celebration of Vietnames creativity – an opportunity to network – to discover new knowledge and skills and to debate the future of creativity in Vietnam

What does the concept of ‘creativity and design’ mean to you and VFCD in general?

Creativity and design are connected but have a different emphasis. Creativity is needed in all aspects of our daily lives – in technology and business as well as the arts. Design in this context refers to consideration of the aesthetic, form and function of the objects that we use and surround ourselves with. The festival is a celebration of considered design where issues such as tradition, innovation and sustainability are examined as part of the design process.

Why do you think VFCD is important for Vietnam?

The creative and cultural industries have a key part to play in the economic and social development of Vietnam – in order to compete on the world stage it needs to nurture and showcase its talent and to provide opportunities for local and global recognition of the talent that exists here. Individuals find it hard to make an impact and to get their work recognized – a major national festival it’s a great way of creating impact and promoting the country as a whole. In normal times festivals attract tourists and businesses and play an important part in building the cultural identity of a country. We hope that the festival will help to move the global perception of made in Vietnam to created – innovated and designed in Vietnam./

Through what perspectives and for what reasons did RMIT initiate a festival for ‘creativity/media & design’?

RMIT has had an annual showcase of our student work for the last 5 years but it was contained within our campuses- we wanted to get more engaged with the local community and to showcase not just the talent of our students but also to provide a platform for local creatives and cultural organisations . We decided to launch the festival in Hanoi for two reasons – the first being that we had just opened our first design degree in Hanoi which we wanted to celebrate and the second was because Hanoi was bidding to become a creative city of design in the UNEsco creative cities network – so it was a very timely initiative.

Thank you very much for your sharing.

26.10.2020

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