China News Agency, Beijing, February 13th, title: How does traditional handicraft carry the Tao "to the sea"?
——Interview with Chen Ping, Dean of the Institute of Cultural Heritage and Creative Industries of Jinan University
China News Agency reporter Xu Wenxin
On October 9, 2022, Jinan University successfully applied for the UNESCO chair of "World Traditional Handicrafts: Inheritance and Innovation", becoming the only chair holder in the field of traditional handicrafts in the world.
Recently, Chen Ping, dean and chief chair of the Institute of Cultural Heritage and Creative Industries of Jinan University, accepted an exclusive interview with China News Agency "East and West".
She said that traditional handicrafts carry unique cultural values, transcend history and borders, and play an important role in improving the country's soft power, expanding foreign exchanges, and displaying the country's image.
The interview transcript is summarized as follows:
China News Agency reporter: What kind of application process did Jinan University go through? What kind of work have you done as the chief chair chair?
Chen Ping:
Since 2000, I have been engaged in the protection of folk art, and I am also in charge of an international folk art organization.
In my work practice, I found that traditional handicrafts all over the world are facing the dilemma of inheritance and innovative development.
How to fully integrate the public welfare and industrial functions of traditional handicrafts under the premise of "sustainable utilization" and "no out of shape" development?
How to mobilize the enthusiasm of contemporary folk craftsmen to inherit and innovate?
These problems plague inheritors, researchers and management departments.
I hope to explore the mechanism of inheritance and provide ideas for solving problems through the combination of education and practice.
The UNESCO Chair is a very good platform and qualification. Its purpose is to realize knowledge sharing and cooperation through the cooperation and exchange of network resources among global higher education institutions, and to carry out professional training, research and exchange activities in the international academic community.
The chair advocates providing professional knowledge training for practitioners through cross-border, cross-border, and cross-field cooperation, as well as mutual support between communities and specialized institutions.
To this end, the Institute of Cultural Heritage and Creative Industries of Jinan University has done a lot of preparatory work.
We plan and organize the "Belt and Road" International Symposium on Cultural Heritage Cooperation and Exchange, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Youth Creative Design (Creativity 100) Talent Training Program, and the Collaborative Innovation in Practical Teaching of "Field Investigation and Oral History of Inheritance and Communication of Lingnan and South Africa" project; establish a university art space, sort out the traditional context for local governments, design cultural and tourism creative products, and jointly carry out academic research with international scholars; at the same time, actively seek support from social resources, participate in international exchange activities, and promote the Convention on the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage and The concept of sustainable development of heritage diversity is also the basic condition for obtaining the qualification of a teaching chair.
In April 2021, Jinan University officially submitted an application for the chair of "World Traditional Handicrafts: Inheritance and Innovation", which has received strong support from universities and institutions at home and abroad.
Applying for a teaching position allows us to learn how to fight for the right to speak internationally, how to abide by international rules, how to express our positions and opinions, and how to use international platforms to convey our thoughts and values. We also realize that in order for foreigners to understand China, we must also Read the world.
The craftsmanship of lion heads in Foshan, Guangdong attracts visitors.
Photo by Chen Chuhong
Reporter from China News Agency: What difficulties in survival of traditional handicrafts will be solved by successfully applying for a teaching position?
Chen Ping:
In the long history, traditional handicrafts such as ceramics, tea making, jadeware, silk dyeing and weaving, wood carving and brick carving, and papermaking technology invented by China have condensed the labor wisdom and aesthetic consciousness of Chinese craftsmen passed down from generation to generation. The world brings economic benefits, which is the shared wealth of human beings organically combining art, technology and commerce.
With the advent of the high-tech era, in the process of modern inheritance, these once brilliant skills are facing many difficulties: how to ensure the authenticity of traditional crafts while meeting the needs of the modern market and aesthetics?
How to make young inheritors realize the value of traditional crafts?
How to integrate traditional elements into modern design and bring better income for practitioners?
Based on the above considerations, the chair will carry out special training for traditional craftsmen, especially young people and women, to let them understand the modern transformation of traditional crafts, improve their survival skills, and combine the inheritance and innovation of traditional crafts with modern design ideas.
The chair will focus on three issues: First, due to the rapid economic development, traditional handicrafts lack innovation capabilities in the fields of technology, design, and business models. How to break this dilemma of inheritance; Ability and entrepreneurial thinking, how to adapt handicrafts to the current market; third, female craftsmen are in a disadvantaged position, how to improve their identity and status.
The chair will actively respond to the United Nations' 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and UNESCO's cultural conventions, promote the inheritance and innovation of traditional handicrafts around the world, and promote the employment and entrepreneurship of craftsmen.
A Miao embroidered lady in Ma'an Village, Douli Town, Congjiang County, Guizhou Province.
Photo by Luo Jinglai
China News Agency reporter: How to balance inheritance and innovation to enhance the market competitiveness of traditional handicrafts and cultural heritage?
Chen Ping:
The relationship between time and art is close and subtle. To help handicrafts span time and adapt to the present, it is necessary to give consideration to both inheritance and innovation.
In terms of inheritance, the whole society should work together to protect cultural heritage and find suitable scenes and stages for them.
It is necessary to restore excellent traditional handicraft skills, especially the training and cultivation of inheritors, so that young people can actively participate in inheritance; it is also necessary to restore folk festivals and traditional folk customs, and traditional art festivals with beautiful connotations cannot be lost.
In terms of innovation, it is necessary to use new methods to enhance and empower traditional handicrafts, introduce traditional elements into design, and enhance consumers' sense of pride and identity.
Cultural heritage needs to be integrated into life, and commercial research needs to be transformed, which requires the joint efforts of designers, commercial organizations and government departments.
A live broadcaster from Luocheng Mulao Autonomous County in Guangxi is introducing Mulao embroidery products.
Photo by Wei Rudai
Reporter from China News Agency: Facing audiences with different cultural backgrounds in various countries, how can cultural heritage realize the value transmission?
Chen Ping:
Cultural heritage spans time and space, has strong historical, artistic and social characteristics, and carries a multicultural value system.
First of all, the value of cultural heritage has the possibility of symbolic communication.
Chinese ceramics, silk, etc. have achieved "artifacts carrying Tao" and become symbols of Chinese culture; at the same time, non-figurative arts such as drama, dance, martial arts, and Tai Chi have also become important ways for overseas people to perceive China.
These "mind-matter duality" symbols combine material and non-material, perceptual images and referential meanings, and make the historical, artistic, technological and social values contained in cultural heritage richer, more vivid and vivid, thus forming Widespread spiritual connotation.
Secondly, the industry should drive the spread of cultural heritage value.
Many heritage sites have characteristic traditional crafts and techniques, and produce unique cultural products with a long history. The intangible cultural heritage elements contained in them have become heritage symbols reflecting folk customs.
Finally, tourism can be used to guide the dissemination of heritage values.
China has a wealth of historical and cultural relics. Through tourism promotion, establishing a global dissemination of IP to highlight the deep connotation of cultural heritage value and enhance the universal recognition of the public is a direction worth exploring at present.
In the embroidery room of "Yaxiao Qishou Chuang" in Longsheng Autonomous County of Guangxi, there are handmade "new national trend" products ingeniously integrated with traditional embroidery.
Photo by Yang Chen
China News Agency reporter: How to use cultural heritage such as traditional handicrafts to tell Chinese stories overseas?
Chen Ping:
The overseas dissemination of cultural heritage needs to give full play to the role of multiple subjects in cross-regional and cross-cultural cooperation and exchanges, and effectively spread Chinese stories and Chinese spirits.
First of all, strengthen the overall driving of multiple industries, and strengthen the compatibility of tradition and modernity.
Communicating and understanding different values is the core issue that must be faced in the cross-cultural communication of heritage values.
Establish a systematic, standardized, and standardized industrial system, so as to effectively spread China's unique regional humanistic genes and cultural disposition, drive cultural symbols to span the distance of time and space, and establish a complete cultural diffusion system, in order to guide the audience to perceive and experience the core of culture Connotation.
Secondly, open up innovative paths for information dissemination and highlight the universality of cultural language.
Cultural heritage can be combined with creative industries to provide "source power" for value dissemination in a natural, peaceful and natural way of artistic creation through fashion design, film and video, interactive software, music, performing arts, publishing and other forms.
Finally, establish an innovative model of talent training and enhance the reserve of communication talents.
On the one hand, the dissemination of cultural heritage value involves multiple resources, and it is necessary to build an exchange and cooperation platform for experts, scholars, master craftsmen, college students, and creative talents with diverse art forms and communication methods.
On the other hand, it is necessary to carry out activities such as academic forums and personnel training around the value dissemination of cultural heritage, to enhance the interaction and exchange of talents at home and abroad, and to add powerful forces to the inheritance, protection and cultural dissemination of cultural heritage.
(over)
Respondent profile:
Chen Ping, dean, professor, doctoral supervisor of the Institute of Cultural Heritage and Creative Industries of Jinan University, host of the UNESCO "World Traditional Handicraft Inheritance and Innovation" chair, global vice chairman of the International Folk Art Organization; has long been engaged in international folk art Protection, research, cross-cultural communication of cultural heritage, and overseas promotion of Chinese culture; editor-in-chief of "Blue Book of China's Intangible Cultural Heritage (2015)", "Echoes of Civilization", etc.; published "From the Revival of Chinese Culture to Talk about the Modern Transformation and Regeneration Design of Traditional Handicrafts" "" Overseas Communication Channels of my country's Cultural Heritage Value", "Historical Development and Cross-Cultural Communication of Chinese Media in Europe" and other papers.