Summer 2018. Central Vietnam. I’m in Da Nang, a large, modern city along the coast. It’s hot. It’s sticky. The sky is low and grey. It’s a rainy afternoon, the air is heavy and it weighs like a damp sheet on the skin. It’s a perfect day for the museum.

I click on my Grab app and call a scooter to take me to the Museum of Cham Sculpture. The French built it along the Han River. We zoom in the drizzle across the modern Dragon Bridge. I hop off outside the pale yellow walls of the nice French colonial building.

I am going to pay a visit to the Chams. I want to see their art. It is also an act of courtesy. This was their land. They were here centuries before me. We are separated by time, yet we share the same geography. For about a thousand years, roughly from 500 until 1500 AD, the Chams walked here, on the same soil I walk on every day. I don’t know much about them. They wrote on leaves and built their homes with wood, and so, not much is left. Most of the sacred places they built in stone were destroyed by the people who came after.

The Chams danced. They made music. They enjoyed polo. They prayed. They appreciated elaborate coiffures. The Chams beautified themselves – and their horses and bulls – with pretty adornments. They travelled on very handsome chariots. They worshipped deities that had come all the way from India.

There’s something I love about sculpted rock. Its three dimensions appeal to my mind and my heart. They capture my attention. I want to look at it. I have the urge of tracing my fingertips along its curves and corners and ridges. The palm of my hand wants to feel the rock – cold, smooth, or rough. I love that you can walk around sculptures. I like to see how shapes change, and how the light reflects on surfaces. Often I want to put my arms around sculptures. Usually I can’t, it’s not allowed, so I don’t. But the urge to touch and connect is alive in me.

Sculpture is heavy. It’s solid. It’s durable. It takes up physical, material space. It is, often, fine and light and delicate. So graceful that you have to keep reminding yourself that this used to be a block of rough stone. I imagine the hands of the maker, touching and holding materials and tools. Stone, chisels, hammers. Deciding where and how to remove the excess that reveals the magic hidden inside. I am in awe of the focus, the care, the control, the strength it took to liberate dancing heavenly maidens and flying warriors, playing horses and elephant gods.

References and Thanks:

Thank you Greg, for being my guide into Vietnamese culture

Da Nang Museum of Cham Sculpture: http://chammuseum.vn/en