What’s in a vase

Piracy, prosperity and a Vietnamese love story present the history of a porcelain vase on display at a Dutch museum.

There is more than a grain of truth in the fictional Manh ghep cuoc doi (Porcelain) television series commissioned by the Zeeuws Museum in the Netherlands.

A young author living in contemporary times accidentally comes into possession of a ceramic vase that dates back to the 16th century. Guided by a mysterious female voice, she is led to learn more about the vase that traveled on a cursed voyage from Asia to Europe.

This narrative, developed as a script by a group of local and international filmmakers, is an attempt to explain the origins of an Asian porcelain vase on display at the Dutch museum.

The television series based on the script is produced with a predominantly Vietnamese cast by the Propeller Group, a Vietnamese-owned creative development and production company, in cooperation with Superflex – a group of artists from Copenhagen that has collaborated with the Propeller Group on several projects.

“It is really to challenge the ideas and notions of an ‘authentic truth,’ said Barbara Dong, a representative from Vortex Company, in charge of PR and marketing for the series.

“History is often seen as truth, but this project plays around with that notion and playfully attempts to challenge it through narrative fiction,” she quoted the Propeller group’s director Tuan Andrew Nguyen as saying.

While several antiques, including the vase, were brought from the museum to Vietnam for the filming in Ho Chi Minh City, the crew asked local artisans to make 50 copies of the vase.

According to the museum, the vase was among Asian porcelain products carried by a Portuguese carrack, San Jago, which was captured by the Dutch in an act of piracy off the St. Helena coast in 1602.

When the ship was later brought to Middelburg in the Netherlands, millions of dollars were earned from selling the porcelain at an auction, marking the start of the city’s prosperity, the museum says on its website.

Some of the props used in the film are part of an installation display together with other artifacts in an exhibition that opened early last month at the Dutch museum.

As part of the exhibition, open untill February 8, the series was also screened at Filmtheater Schuttershof in Middelburg, capital city of Zeeland province on October 16.

The series and the exhibition have received good feedback from Dutch audiences, said Rasmus Nielsen, executive producer and also a member of Superflex.

Nielsen said the combination of the mysterious but true details of Dutch history and a Vietnamese love story had charmed the audience.

“Porcelain” and the display are part of a Zeeuws Museum plan launched this year to explore the significance of local identity in a national and international context.

The museum wants to offer the public a chance to study its collection’s history in creative, interesting ways.

Interested readers can find the series’s trailer at http://www.propellergroup.com/porcelain.

Reported by Cat Khue