Dough modeling is a very "cool" thing (Xin Guochao)
Zhang Zihan
"Can you do me one more favor? Can you make another 'Bingdundun'? Because my family has a pair of twins." During the Beijing Winter Olympics, Prince Albert II of Monaco experienced the scene of making dough sculptures in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. Impressive.
The third-generation inheritor of the national intangible cultural heritage "Beijing Noodles Lang" and the "post-95" Lang Jiaziyu taught the Prince of Monaco to make the noodle maker "Bing Dun Dun".
After graduating from Peking University School of Art, Lang Jiaziyu has been trying to make new themes with old craftsmanship.
He used short videos and other new media to spread, so that more people can see that dough sculpture is not only a traditional craft, but also a very "cool" thing.
Innovate in inheritance
Small doughs of various colors turned back and forth in his father's hands, and in just two or three minutes, they turned into a lifelike dough man... This was Lang Jiaziyu's first impression of the face sculpture.
Under the influence of his father, Lang Jiaziyu liked dough sculpting since he was a child, and began to learn art at the age of 5.
As he grew up, Lang Jiaziyu's dough sculpture skills continued to improve. At the same time, he was also thinking about how to create works with his own style that were different from those of his predecessors.
Lang Jiaziyu once made many well-known IP characters with dough sculptures, but later found out that this was just copying popular culture with traditional techniques.
Therefore, he returned from the trend to the tradition, focusing on the relationship between traditional culture and the present, trying to create works with the characteristics of the times.
For example, when creating the "Shan Hai Jing" dough sculpture work, Lang Jiaziyu re-created traditional culture with his personal understanding. Among them, "Huoshen Zhu Rong" was full of blood and red, surrounded by two dragons, which was completely different from traditional dough sculptures. .
"Because in my vision, Vulcan is very powerful, I tried a more exaggerated visual effect." Lang Jiaziyu believes that if a work is difficult to impress people only with skills, it must have the creator's Think and resonate with content.
New explorations are not all smooth sailing, and there will be failures.
However, for Lang Jiaziyu, there is no 100% perfect work, just try to get as close as possible to the effect he wants in the continuous tempering.
There will also be surprises in the attempt.
Lang Jiaziyu once created a face sculpture that depicts Fu Sheng laying down his life to protect the book. In the work, Fu Sheng reads with concentration, and there are several scrolls of bamboo slips on the bookcase.
Once, he placed the tiger face sculpture he made for the Year of the Tiger next to "Fusheng", but suddenly found something new: the original work contained books and slips, and the atmosphere was quiet. The sense of danger in the silence is full of fun.
Lang Jiaziyu immediately decided to combine the two works.
Not afraid of "sit on the cold bench"
"'Noodle' is actually a substance that meets the needs of food and clothing. If it is used for 'plastic', it becomes a work of art that meets aesthetic needs." Lang Jiaziyu said.
With the development of the times, dough sculpture is also faced with problems such as gradual decline and generation of inheritors.
Lang Jiaziyu then tried to use new media to let more people see this skill.
Today, his total fans in new media such as Kuaishou and Weibo have reached more than 2.2 million.
The new media allows Lang Jiaziyu to experience the new form of the dissemination and inheritance of traditional skills.
For example, when the movie "Lion Boy" was released, Lang Jiaziyu liked it very much, felt the same about the content of the movie, and created a dough sculpture that restored the scene of the movie.
He released the video showing the creative process on the new media platform, which unexpectedly attracted the praise of the main creator of the film, and realized a "dreamful linkage" with the film.
In addition, some netizens asked online about learning dough sculpting, and sometimes asked him to comment on the original dough sculpting works of netizens.
Lang Jiaziyu believes that new media may generate more inheritance methods, and there may be a model that combines traditional skills and knowledge payment in the future.
Non-genetic inheritance, people are the key.
Because of family background, Lang Jiaziyu embarked on the road of non-genetic inheritance.
In his view, in order to attract more young people to join in, it requires the joint efforts of the society: on the one hand, practitioners must create more works that attract young people, so that young people feel that traditional crafts are "cool"; On the other hand, it is also necessary to form a stable business format, so that engaging in craftsmanship can become a profession that can support oneself.
"I'm not calling on everyone to knead people, but I hope everyone can bravely choose what they want to do. Even if it's very unpopular and very small now, it makes you feel like you're sitting on the bench, but as long as you stick to it Long enough, this 'bench' will be able to sit hot." Lang Jiaziyu said.
In the future, he hopes to explore more new models of non-genetic inheritance and development, help more non-genetic inheritors, and encourage and support more young traditional culture practitioners.