Cultural heritage reborn with new tech, innovation
Sarah Bernabei (left), an Italian postgraduate from Fudan University and a volunteer, introduces a newly developed mobile App based on augmented reality technology at the Great World on Saturday, where visitors can watch films about the city's heritage.
Many of the city's heritage skills that once struggled to survive have evolved and transformed with the help of new technologies, innovative ideas and government support.
Over 1,000 exhibitions, lectures as well as training and experience sessions on local heritage skills are being held across the city over the weekend to mark the nation's Cultural and Natural Heritage Day on Saturday.
The city named 30 new heritage skills at the Shanghai Great World, which dates back to 1917 and is now a promotion and exhibition center for cultural heritages.
The 30 newly listed heritages range from the martial arts such as Bagua Palm and Xingyi Boxing to root sculpture, flower making, furniture repairing and cooking of shengjian, a popular pan-fried dumpling.
The city has about 250 listed and protected heritage skills, which means the inheritors can receive subsidies to promote and teach their skills and pass them on to the next generations.
What are now called intangible cultural heritages were once quite common on the streets including bamboo-weaving, paper cutting and mud sculptures.
But some vanished, as China modernized and machines replaced humans.
Traditional New Year paintings, for instance, can now be easily printed and copied, while the complicated and time-consuming manual embroidery skills can be replaced by computer graphics.
China has listed 1,986 items of national “intangible cultural heritage,” including in the fields of literature, music, dance, opera, sports, arts, handicrafts, traditional medicine and folk arts.
It is fighting to keep them from being lost forever.
The traditional weaving and dyeing of the southwestern Li ethnic minority, for example, is listed as an endangered intangible skill by UNESCO. It is based on a traditional and complicated process of spinning, weaving, dyeing and embroidery.
The Shanghai city government's efforts to protect its legacies are highlighted on this year's Culture and Heritage Day. The day was approved by China’s State Council, or the Cabinet, in 2017.
It falls on on the second Saturday of June each year.
Visitors watch the artworks melding inherited traditional skills with modern designs from Shanghai University’s Academy of Fine Arts and Public Art Coordination Center at the Shanghai Great World on Saturday.
Visitors watch artworks melding inherited traditional skills with modern designs.
Sarah Bernabei, a postgraduate with Fudan University from Italy and a volunteer, introduced a newly developed mobile App based on augmented reality (AR) technology at the Great World on Saturday. By scanning photos of a cultural heritage item, a high definition film about the skills will be broadcast on the viewers' mobile devices.
"These Chinese cultural heritages, especially the traditional food, are attractive, because they are quite different from those in the Europe," said Bernabei. She has studied Chinese in Italy for three years and began learning the traditional cultures three months ago.
The App was developed by Shanghai 3d Film Co. that has made a series of short films on the first batch of 60 local listed heritage skills. The movies which were released on Saturday will be broadcast on subways, buses and office buildings across the city, said Hou Jianqiu, the head of operation of the company.
The production of the second series on another 60 heritage skills is under preparation, said Hou.
The new technology appears to be attractive among visitors to the Great World. Many of them scanned the photos with their mobile phones under the guidance of Bernabei, who can speak fluent Mandarin.
Along with the AR display, masters of several heritage skills showcased not only their artisanship but also innovative ideas to keep the traditional skills alive and even profitable.
Zheng Huixiong, 43, a former IT engineer with China Telecom, quitted his promising job at the state-owned enterprise to carry on the family skill he learnt from his mother -- making of local style sachet bags.
According to Chinese folklore, the traditional sachets filled with perfume compounds and traditional Chinese medicine herbs repel insects and sickness, and are also used to pray for health and peace.
By making the traditional sachets into various innovative and stylish shapes, such as football, panda, hearts and dragon boats, Zheng has helped develop her mother's small workshop into a popular business. The formulas of the fillings have also been redeveloped to cater for the health demands of the customers.
"Traditional cultures also need keep abreast of the times," Zheng said. About 300,000 of the fragrant sachets are made every year. Most of them are sold in Chinese traditional pharmacies, priced from 10 to 60 yuan (US$8.68) each.
Traditional Chinese opera, marking the nation's Cultural and Natural Heritage Day
Gu Haohao (middle), the head of the Shanghai Kunqu Opera Troupe, teaches children and young visitors the traditional Suzhou-based opera.
Liu Entong, a local stone carving master, brought his latest masterpiece to the exhibition on Saturday, a teapot made with stone carving skills. Liu is trying to involve his listed skill, often displayed in heavy artistic sculptures, into various smaller daily commodities that can be more easily promoted among the public.
Apart from the teapot that resembles a frog on a lotus leaf, he has developed pen containers, boxes, pen shelves and other practical stuff with the traditional stone carving skill. Many of the artworks will be exhibited and sold at the terminal buildings of Shanghai's Hongqiao and Pudong international airports.
Fashionable clothes, jewelries, bags and notebooks from Shanghai University’s Academy of Fine Arts and Public Art Coordination Center attracted most visitors at the exhibition at the Great World.
Dozens of artworks meld inherited traditional skills with modern designs. The grass weaving in Xuhang Town in outskirt Jiading District, for instance, is made into fashion handbags. A bamboo weaving skill is combined with various jewelry designs.
Under an ongoing training program, masters with traditional skills study at the academy for a month. There, they learn how to adapt ancient talents into modern products that will keep the heritage alive in contemporary society.
The academy has trained over 450 heritage handicraft masters from 20 provinces and cities nationwide and developed hundreds of products over four years with the help of professors and design students, said Zhang Lili, operation director of the Public Art Cooperation Center and a professor with the academy.
"Cultural heritage is alive and well, but must evolve with new techniques in the new era," Zhang said.
A qipao show, the stylish body-hugging one-piece dress, at the Great World .
Officials grant placards to representatives of the city's sixth batch of listed heritage skills at the Shanghai Great World on Saturday.
