8th Young Art Festival 2026

   866 works submitted, 211 chosen for the wall — this is the fullest cross-section available of what young Vietnam is painting, sculpting and building right now. It comes round once every two years, and this edition sits in Hanoi, inside a contemporary art centre tucked under a shopping mall.

   After a five-month open call, the Art Council selected 211 works by 185 authors out of 866 works by 585 authors from across the country — painting, sculpture, graphic art and contemporary art. Thirty-one works by 29 authors were named in the prize list: 3 first prizes, 5 second, 9 third, 11 consolation and 3 for graduation works.

   This year's three first prizes
— Nguyen Thuy Hang (Nguyễn Thúy Hằng) — “Dòng chảy S’tiêng”, large-format lacquer, technically assured
— Le Quynh Anh (Lê Quỳnh Anh) — “Tồn tại mờ ảo”, a collagraph print made from discarded milk cartons
— Duong Duc Duy (Dương Đức Duy) — “Giữa hai thời”, stainless steel with stone

   If you want to know what Vietnamese art will look like in ten years, this is where to look first: most of the names on the wall have yet to hold a solo show. For art students and teachers it is a concrete benchmark — which works cleared the jury, and in which medium. For anyone starting to collect, it is a rare chance to see a whole generation at once, before their prices move.

   The festival is open to artists aged 18 to 35 and is run every two years by the Department of Fine Arts, Photography and Exhibition (Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism) together with VCCA. The 7th edition in 2024 received 1,050 works by 300 authors and hung 148 works by 121 authors. Against that, the number of authors entering has almost doubled this year (300 to 585), while selected works rose from 148 to 211.

   VCCA occupies the basement level of Vincom Mega Mall Royal City, one of the few large contemporary art spaces in Hanoi: you take the escalator down and walk straight in off the shopping aisle. It is in Thanh Xuân, roughly twenty minutes from the Old Quarter.

   The show has also started an argument worth knowing about. Painter Trinh Tuan (Trịnh Tuân), curator of the Art Connecting project, told Tuổi Trẻ that this year's young artists are as “old” as in previous editions, and that even the prize-winning works show no real breakthrough. The most candid voice belongs to one of the winners: Nguyen Bach, third prize for “Khác biệt theo mẫu” (Difference by Template), admits that he too is “creating within limits” — exactly the message his own picture carries.

   The second-prize group shows how wide the range of materials ran: Nguyen Ngoc Long — “Hành trình vững bước” (ceramics); Trinh Phan An — “Copy, pasted” (lacquer); Luu Huyen Linh — “Cấu trúc của nỗi cô đơn” (silk); Nguyen Quang Huy — “Đứng vững vào” (oil and acrylic on cement). The one worth standing in front of longest may be “Dinh Ông Thượng” by Nguyen Thanh Nhan: a lacquer painting of Bạch Dinh, the White Palace in Vũng Tàu, where the patriotic king Thành Thái spent his years under house arrest. It reconstructs the king's torn state of mind in a cubist-leaning language. On prize day, Nhan was photographed with his grandmother, who had travelled up from Đồng Tháp to Hanoi to collect it with him.

   The next edition is two years away. Go and decide for yourself: is this a generation finding its voice, or one still playing it safe?