German Ambassador to Laos, Annette Knobloch (right), and Deputy Head of Mission at the German Embassy, Nicole Stechmann, pose for a photo with their gifts from Souliya Phoumivong.

German Embassy unveils dramatic new murals

The colourful paintings that make up the 70-metre-long and 4-metre-wide mural and mosaic that spans the whole length of the outer boundary wall of the German Embassy in Vientiane are now the centre of attention thanks to their vivid portrayal of Lao and German culture and history.
The murals were revealed to the public last week, when the Lao artist, Souliya Phoumivong, who is known for his stop-motion animation videos and handmade clay models, explained his involvement in the project.
In his artistic practice, the signature protagonists are Buffalo and Clay Man. Souliya’s Buffalo is understood to be a metaphor for the ordinary citizen, offering careful reflections on modern reality, social order, information exchange and knowledge about Laos.
Souliya is a teacher at the National Institute of Fine Arts and the founder of Clay House Studios. He is the artist behind the famous edutainment programme “My Village” for Lao children.
Speaking at the event, German Ambassador to Laos Annette Knobloch talked about Germany’s close links with walls and murals, saying the country was not only associated with the Berlin Wall, but also with the murals of Vat Sisaket, which were preserved and restored from 2011 to 2017 with funding from the cultural preservation programme of the German Federal Foreign Office.
“Today, the Berlin Wall is not only a symbol of the division of Germany and the Cold War, but also a place of interest in the German capital. The outer boundary wall of our embassy has also become a certain attraction in Vientiane. It has attracted the attention of our neighbours and of the residents of Sokpaluang village; it has aroused their curiosity and has even invited people to comment on the painting process and offer advice to the artist,” Ambassador Knobloch said.
In July a guidebook titled “The Vat Sisaket Ba-la-san-kha-ya Murals” was published to celebrate the restoration of mural paintings at Vat Sisaket, sponsored by the Embassy of Luxembourg and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation.
Now, a short time later, the German Embassy is pleased to celebrate another kind of wall painting.
Ambassador Knobloch said the eye-catching wall decoration was the brainchild of Nicole Stechmann, Deputy Head of Mission at the German Embassy in 2021, who wanted to have the outer boundary wall of the embassy painted.
“Anais Pinith, a photographer and designer, designed the wonderful leporello and the artist Souliya Phoumivong deserves a big thank you for his painting and setting up the installation in the Embassy garden today - a kind of preview of an upcoming exhibition,” she added.
Souliya said this was the first time he had stood up in his home country to present his buffalo exhibition.
He began the painting of the Embassy wall with a large head of a girl because he wanted to catch people’s eye and draw their attention to the wall with the portrayal of a pretty girl. He then drew two butterflies to indicate the close relationship between Laos and Germany, followed by flowers, paintings of Lao and German people, the countries’ flags, and some buffalo.
Souliya also explained the significance of the different colours of the buffalo models in the garden, saying that one was clearly a leader like a boss in an office, or a teacher like himself, who began by exercising control over his students but later led them to find their own way and decide their own destiny.
Last year, he supervised a Lao-German-French workshop in the framework of a joint animation film project organised by the French Institute in Vientiane and the Goethe Institute in Bangkok.
At the end of the event, Souliya presented surprise gifts, models of the Buffalo and Buffalo Man, to Ambassador Knobloch and Ms Stechmann, to thank them for the opportunity to display his artistic talents.

By Patithin Phetmeuangphuan
(Latest Update November 1, 2022)