Timely revival
Age-old crafts get modern update with artists seeking creative ways to preserve the art forms, Cao Chen reports in Shanghai.
On display at the Baoshan International Folk Arts Exposition are traditional Chinese crafts. The expo at Shanghai’s Baoshan district will run through July 11 in commemoration of the centennial of the Communist Party of China’s founding.
The exhibition showcases works ranging from paper-cuttings to wood and bamboo carvings by more than 120 inheritors of national intangible cultural heritage and some 60 Chinese artists.
At a special exhibition zone featuring significant traditional Chinese artworks of the past century, a jade sculpture created by 34 Shanghai jade carvers is one of the exhibition highlights. The sculpture depicts images of important revolutionary sites and documents from the period of the Party’s founding. These include the site of the First National Congress of the CPC and the first Chinese translation of the Communist Manifesto by German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.
The sculpture will be donated to the memorial of the First National Congress of the CPC in Shanghai’s Huangpu district after the exhibition.
The show also enables visitors to admire a set of cloisonne artwork praised by the late reputed author Guo Moruo as “the first national gift of China”. The set includes three plates created by artists, including Chang Shana under the guidance of late architect and writer Lin Huiyin in the 1950s, using Chinese enameling techniques that were widely seen in metalwork dating back to the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).
The set was a gift to representatives from other countries participating in the Asia-Pacific Regional Peace Conference held in Beijing in 1952 after the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. Patterns on the pieces are from the Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang and include doves and flying apsaras that symbolize peace and happiness.
Also on display is lacquerware by Gan Erke, a national-level inheritor of the craft in Zhejiang province’s Huizhou. It took Gan more than two decades to learn the craft, which, despite a history of 1,700 years, was on the verge of extinction.
Adding material such as turquoise, cinnabar, coral and gold into raw lacquer, Gan is well-versed in making the surface of the lacquerware glow. Many of his works have been added to the collections of museums worldwide.
“Visitors will become familiar with the tangible manifestation of intangible cultural heritage in China through the show,” says Fang Shizhong, director of the Shanghai Municipal Administration of Culture and Tourism.
Fang also says Shanghai has been promoting high-quality development of traditional crafts and preserving cultural heritage.
Shanghai is home to 63 nationallevel intangible heritage projects and 120 national-level craftsmen.
In 2015, the Shanghai Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Regulations were promulgated. Related topics were also added to the city’s 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) this year, stating that the city will promote intangible cultural heritage in schools, establish traditional craftsmanship training centers and support intangible cultural heritage brands.
Chen Yajun, a skilled craftswoman of the district-level intangible cultural heritage, the Gucun town Chinese knot, participated in activities demonstrating the craft held during the opening ceremony on June 12.
Based on traditional Chinese knotting techniques using strings, the Gucun town craft inherited by Chen combines several materials like wood, stone and gold for artistic interpretation.
The craftsmanship has passed through four generations beginning from her great-grandmother, and Chen revives the old art by utilizing her expertise in art, jewelry design and costume design.
“It’s tough to learn such a skill which requires lots of patience and practice,” says Chen who admits there was a time she considered giving it up. “I once thought that, nowadays, traditional art is usually displayed or memorialized, as fewer people wear traditional costumes or buy artwork.”
However, she gradually changed her thinking as she was influenced by family members who are interested in traditional Chinese paintings, calligraphy and antiques, so she continued to learn from her mother and made it her career. She also founded her own studio in 2010 with six apprentices in Shanghai.
Also an instructor at the art design and media school of East China University of Science and Technology, Chen teaches the craft to students from primary and sec
It’s time that the craftsmanship embraces more down-to-earth, trendy approaches to appeal to the public, instead of just displaying works at exhibitions.”
Zheng Shulin, a huayangjing craftsman
ondary schools. New art pieces are also regularly promoted on social media accounts of the district to popularize the craft.
“Thanks to the domestic environment where cultural heritage is well preserved, our team often cooperates with local designers to create products,” Chen says. The most recent collaboration was between Chen’s team and Shanghai designer Ye Qing for a qipao couture show during Shanghai Fashion Week in June.
Traditions and advancement are not mutually exclusive. Qiu Chunlin, director of the arts and crafts research institute at the China National Academy of Arts, emphasized the need for new promotion channels such as e-commerce and livestreaming to facilitate the development of traditional craftsmanship. Moreover, many regions in China have been lifted out of poverty in the past decade through traditional arts.
Shi Liping, a craftsman of ethnic Miao embroidery, says more than 200 villagers in Guizhou province’s Songtao county have learned embroidery from her. Training has equipped 6,800 locals with skills for jobs that help them to raise their families.
Huayangjing, a Shanghai papercutting art form, was listed as a citylevel intangible cultural heritage in 2007. In the old days, craftsmen would chant the words huayangjing as they cut paper in stalls along the alleys. As a huayangjing craftsman, Zheng Shulin has uploaded 532 short videos of his work on the Douyin app since March 2018. Every Wednesday and Saturday since May last year, Zheng holds livestreaming sessions, which, so far, has attracted 4,000 followers.
As he shapes the papers into masterpieces, Zheng speaks in the Shanghai dialect and shares his knowledge about the patterns and techniques of huayangjing in his videos and livestreams.
“I’m confident of passing on the traditional art to younger generations. It’s time that the craftsmanship embraces more down-to-earth, trendy approaches to appeal to the public, instead of just displaying works at exhibitions,” Zheng says.
A Douyin report released on June 12 shows that paper-cutting ranks among the five most popular traditional intangible cultural heritage videos, followed by bamboo weaving, wood carving, stone carving and clay sculpturing. Related papercutting videos also received over 130 million likes on the app.
“Traditional arts have always been part of our lives, although their influence has somehow been overshadowed by industrialization and technological advancement. But due to intangible cultural heritage protection in the country over the last five years, traditional craftsmanship has found its contemporary value in the modern world,” says Zhang Lili, one of the exhibition curators and a professor of design at Shanghai University’s Academy of Fine Arts.
“Age-old craftsmanship is still developing. It is full of possibilities.”