A non-profit organisation, the Indochina Arts Partnership (IAP) seeks to cultivate, develop and produce programmes of cultural development and artistic exchange as a means of building understanding and peaceful co-operation between the peoples of the United States and the countries of South East Asia, with a primary focus on Việt Nam. Founded in 1988 to foster cultural understanding through shared art, IAP has produced two widely-travelled exhibitions of modern work by Vietnamese and American artists, with a third in the making. In addition, the Partnership has sponsored residencies in America for more than 50 Vietnamese visual artists, writers and leaders of national cultural institutions and has arranged working journeys to Việt Nam for numerous American counterparts. In 1995 the Indochina Arts Partnership initiated planning with several Vietnamese cultural agencies for a national centre for the preservation of Việt Nam’s rich folk art and crafts tradition. A complementary project, the Huế Centre for Folk Culture Studies, will showcase the traditional ethnic minority music, crafts and everyday life of central Việt Nam in a facility comprising a series of traditional minority buildings located on the banks of the beautiful Hương (Perfume) River. In 1999 IAP worked with the Việt Nam Fine Arts Association to establish the Contemporary Art Centre in Hà Nội. This facility now hosts many of Việt Nam’s most important exhibitions and provides living and working space for Vietnamese and foreign artists. The IAP's Sister School Program pairs American art schools with their counterparts in Việt Nam for the purpose of artistic and educational exchanges. Included in these pairings are: the Maine College of Art with the Hà Nội University of Fine Arts; the Massachusetts College of Art with the Hồ Chí Minh City University of Fine Arts; and the Rhode Island School of Design with the Huế University of Arts. Each pair of schools designs their own exchanges based on the needs of their own schools. Previous exchanges have included among other things faculty, students, exhibition and curriculum information. Originated in Boston as a volunteer organisation with nominal funding under the direction of practising printmaker, art professor and Việt Nam War veteran David Thomas, IAP has gained a wide reputation in the United States and in Việt Nam as a cost-effective collaborative producer of diverse cultural exchange initiatives. The Partnership is supported in part by sources including The Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Asian Cultural Council, the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Smithsonian Institution and the Chase Manhattan Bank. Since 1987 IAP Director David Thomas has led more than 30 trips to Việt Nam, enabling more than 100 people to visit the country and learn more about Vietnamese art and culture. These trips have ranged from two weeks to two months and have included visits to Hà Nội, Hạ Long Bay, the Perfume Pagoda, Huế, Đà Nẵng, Hội An, Pleiku, Kon Tum and Hồ Chí Minh City; most of those travelling to Việt Nam have been American artists who are interested in learning more about Vietnamese contemporary art and traditional handicrafts.