The exhibition to commemorate the 60th anniversary of Veteran’s Day (July 27) will take place at Vietnam Cultural Expo Centre at 2 Hoa Lu Street, Hanoi.

Trinh Tu’s 40-page, 0.9x2.1m, 300-kg wooden book recaptures the political classics considered Vietnam’s declarations of independence of 3 different periods in history: Ly Thuong Kiet’s Nam quoc Son ha composed in the 10th century; Nguyen Trai’s Binh Ngo Dai Cao written in the 15th century, and Ho Chi Minh’s Tuyen ngon Doc lap written in the 20th century.

For his original work, Trinh Tu used a valuable, rare and durable kind of wood and paper. This is calligrapher Trinh Tuan’s second record work of calligraphy after a 300m long calligraphy reproduction of the Tale of Kieu to commemorate legendary poet Nguyen Du’s 240th birthday in 2005.

Trinh Tuan said the declarations of independence project had been on his mind since college graduation. “But then, I moved around too much, and I was busy with earning a living. So only when I studied at Hanoi Culture University, did I have time and opportunities to concentrate on doing calligraphy,” he said.

He also said he used his own money for this project, in which he wrote in Vietnamese rather than Han scripts. Asked about this, Tuan said, “I’ve abandoned Han calligraphy for Vietnamese calligraphy. Living in a particular society, one has to use its own language and literature.

“The important thing is that calligraphy in whatever language must express what is hidden beneath the skin of languages, so to speak.”  Declarations of Independence will be registered for the Vietnam Books of Records, shown to the public in HCM City on Independence Day, September 2 and presented to the Vietnam Museum of Military History.

(Source: Tien Phong)