SINGAPORE— Fourteen museums and private galleries in Singapore have joined together to mount a cultural festival celebrating Vietnam, the city-state's first such event dedicated to another country, reports Bloomberg.

The event is anchored by an exhibition at the Asian Civilisations Museum, "Viet Nam: From Myth to Modernity," which opens today. Through intergovernmental cooperation, the museum borrowed some 160 artifacts from Vietnam in an effort to cover 2,500 years of the country's history.

"A lot of people don't understand Vietnam," said Michael Koh, chief executive officer of Singapore's National Heritage Board, which runs the state museums. "It's an opportunity for us to start discovering and start introducing this to the world."

The festival runs through September.