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MAGAZINE / CULTURE / Pandora Studio Café
Monday 16 May, 2011CULTURE
Pandora Studio Café
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Inside a brand new café on the border between districts 1 and 5 lies a fantasy world. Paper trees glow eerily from within, torn-apart electronics and miniature televisions blink, and paintings of mythical creatures stare down from the walls.
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Look a little closer, and some other details emerge: a second-floor library of art books, a pile of pencils and sketch paper available for customers, and drinks on the menu bearing names like “Mondrian,” “Dali,” and “Klimt.”
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According to the three friends who built it, Pandora Studio Cafe is meant to be a place for artists to meet and work. On the heels of the April 27 opening, we sat down with freelance art director Nguyen Que Huong, VJ and art show producer Antonio Rosciano, and artist and instructor at HCM Fine Art University Phan Vu Linh to find out more about their artistic venue.
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What do you hope to accomplish with Pandora Studio Cafe?
Linh: I wanted to make this café a place to gather the people who work on illustration and fine art, and so on. We just wanted to have a place to work, to talk.
Antonio: Yes, that’s the sense. We nourish a community and we meet and gather here.
Huong: It’s a free place – a welcoming, comforting place for artists and creators.
How did you find this space and decide on the décor?
Antonio: The theme is fantasy world, cyber punk.
Huong: We always liked the fantasy theme, but it’s very wide. We needed to find a word to connect it together – we chose “cyber-punk”. We did everything – it’s all handmade.
Linh: And, for the building, it’s actually my house. The books are also my collection.
Huong: And the toys. He collects everything!
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What has been the biggest challenge?
Huong: We’re artists –the biggest challenge is our imaginations are bigger than our business plans. We want to have classes for handicraft, for Illustration, about media art. We also want to have a sketching hour, where we’ll organize a model. We want to have digital station. It’s a little place but we have a lot of ideas!
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How did you choose the name?
Linh: I always liked the story of Pandora’s box. We’re like the box, and we want people to be curious about us, to want to come in. And all the bad stuff inside the box is now gone, and there’s just the hope left inside.
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Pandora Studio Café: 2A Nguyen Van Cu, District 1
Words: Frances McInnis
Photos: chuotcoduoi
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