Early in 2021 an interesting proposal came into my inbox through a close friend. My friend is an interior designer and had recently completed a project for the Melia Hotel in Ho Tram. The hotel had been busy building new villas. Adding to their impressive main facilities. And needed artwork to go into these lovely villas.
The hotel had decided on photographs as the art to be placed in the villas and I happen to have.. well, lots of Photographs!
Thus began a several month long project to scout the site (still under construction in some areas). Decide on a photographic style. Lay out the artwork. Manage the printing. The framing. The transportation. And finally, the installation of the pieces into the finished villas.
While I have done smaller installations and decor projects in the past. Mainly providing the artwork and then calling it a day. This was a much larger project. One on a scale that I had not done before. It was a little nerve racking to say the least. The first step was designing a common theme for the two different villa types. After much back and forth with the ownership of the hotel. We decided on a mix of landscape and details of everyday life in coastal Vietnam. Being based in Hoi An was a blessing in this case. I had been working with Pics Of Asia and their HoiAn Photography Tours & Workshops for a few years. While living in in a coastal area. Thankfully I had a lot of photographs in that exact theme to choose from.
While there are differences between the coastal communities in Vietnam. Especially with how the communities do their fishing and the styles of boats they use. Some things are universal throughout Vietnam. The iconic basket boat or Coracle Boat is one of those things. As are the blue and red painted fishing boats with eyes painted on the bow.
Along with the clients request to not have people in the photos. They also requested to not have numbers in any photo. Vietnamese people are suspicious of certain numbers. If a room happens to have a number that is not your “lucky” number in it, anywhere, can turn away a local sale. So best not to have any at all.
Once all the photos were approved on came the next major task. Printing. As the environment in Ho Tram can be quite humid we decided on a canvas print for all the photos. I believe canvas is one of the best materials to print photos on in Vietnam. This type of print would allow us to frame the prints without the use of glass. Keeping reflections down. As well as withstand the humidity and regular temperature changes in the villas. Air conditioning being turned on then off for lengths of time. Traditional paper prints tend to warp and bend in humidity. The canvas was a good option here. As it was stretched across a frame and would not be affected by as much by the humid conditions.
Framing and transportation was the easy part.
Now came the hard stuff. Getting approximately 900 individual pieces of art up onto the walls of all 30 villas. AA Corporation Installation experts to the rescue!! As they were already on the site we found it would be easier to work with them on getting all our art up on the walls.
And indeed it was. An excellent team, they got the show villas done in two days. The rest of the villas were done over the course of a month. Approximately one villa per day, and every piece was placed exactly where it was supposed to be.
It was an interesting experience and one that I would love to do again. It is interesting digging into my archives of photos. Finding things that people want to see printed. It is also a lot of fun printing that many photos and then getting to see them up on walls, En mass!
So, all that being said… anyone interested in some new decor?
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