Step inside Asia Culture Center

Where Asian cultures meet and create

During a recent working trip to the RoK by a Da Nang delegation, Mr Nguyen Huu Dong, Deputy Director of Da Nang Newspaper and Radio - Television, was introduced to ACC by its Director Kim Sangug, who has spent many years working in Vietnam.

Under RoK’s Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, ACC is an international arts and cultural exchange organization that produces new, future-oriented results through the convergence of Asia’s past and present arts and culture with innovative ideas and beliefs.

ACC plays the role of an integrated platform for participants from Asia and the rest of the world to freely unite and exchange their ideas while transcending boundaries in carrying out the steps of research, creation, and production.

At the ACC, diverse and dynamic programs (exhibitions, performances, education, festivals, and other events) using collected research data, resources, etc., are held year-round with the creative output of experts from various fields who have exchanged their creativity and ingenuity with one another.

Asia is explored through contemporary art, moving images, sound, technology, and questions surrounding memory, identity, cities, and people.

The scale of ACC is striking. Its premises cover an area equivalent to about 22 football fields. Yet its significance lies less in its size than in the space it creates for Asian cultures to meet, exchange ideas, and develop new forms of expression.

Its galleries, archives, performance spaces, film programs, sound installations and digital works bring cultural memories into contemporary life. Rather than treating heritage as something fixed,

ACC presents it as a source of ideas that can be continuously reinterpreted. Vietnam is already part of this cultural dialogue. Vietnamese artist Nguyen Trinh Thi was featured in ACC’s film and arts programme with “47 Days, Sound-loops”. Her work was presented within a broader stream of contemporary Asian artistic expression.

Earlier, Da Nang-born artist Bui Cong Khanh had also presented “Northern Heritage” at ACC. The presence of Vietnamese artists in an international cultural institution offers audiences another way to understand Vietnam through visual art, film, literature, and new creative forms.

Bringing Da Nang’s cultural stories to Asia

This experience also raises a question for Da Nang: What can the city bring to this wider Asian conversation? Da Nang possesses a rich cultural foundation, from Sa Huynh and Champa heritage to the Dai Viet period.

The city is also closely connected with globally recognised heritage sites such as Hoi An and My Son, alongside “Bai Choi” singing, traditional villages, craft communities and the cultural memories of a land shaped by centuries of exchange.

These resources could be transformed into new cultural expressions through film, sound, visual art, digital media, theatre, and international artistic collaboration.

Cooperation with ACC could take various forms, including a Da Nang Cultural Week, exhibitions on Sa Huynh and Champa heritage, film programmes featuring Hoi An, My Son and Cu Lao Cham (Cham Islands), or Bai Choi performances presented in dialogue with contemporary Korean art.

Exchanges between young artists from Da Nang, the KoK and other Asian countries could also lead to new collaborative works. These initiatives could help international audiences experience Da Nang’s heritage in new and creative ways. Kim Sangug introduced works by Vietnamese artists including Bui Xuan Phai and Duong Bich Lien.

The presentation highlighted a fundamental principle of cultural institutions: meaningful exchange begins when doors remain open. ACC has opened a door to Asia.

Da Nang has many stories to bring through it - from Sa Huynh and Champa heritage to Hoi An, My Son and Cu Lao Cham; from brocade, lanterns and gongs to Bai Choi, maritime traditions, and the memories of a changing city.

Giving these cultural voices a place in international creative spaces would allow Da Nang to engage more confidently with Asia and the world, not simply as a destination to visit, but as a city with stories, heritage and creative ideas to share.