When Shenzhen meets the non-traditional heritage, what kind of spark will be created? "Take the rules of the ancients and open your own face". In this young city, there are a group of excellent designers and non-hereditary inheritors who bring together non-heritage projects from all over the country. From Dong bright cloth reconstruction to lion cultural IP design, from the development of flower silk mosaic techniques to the transformation of ethnic costumes ...... they are promoting the transformation and innovative development of the value of non-heritage culture by combining the spirit of Chinese aesthetics with contemporary aesthetic pursuits, and by doing so, they are realizing the protection, inheritance and revitalization of non-heritage culture and activating Chinese cultural vitality. All this has gradually become an important symbol and characteristic of Shenzhen's humanistic spirit and modern city culture.

If you ask, what attracts them to Shenzhen? "Openness, tolerance, diversity and internationalization" would be their common answer. As the "Design Capital", Shenzhen's new design perspective, international vision, perfect industrial chain support, favorable business environment, and young city atmosphere are all potentials to activate the innovation and development of non-heritage culture. At the same time, the Shenzhen Municipal Government has been practicing the concept of "seeing people, seeing things, seeing life" in the protection of NFR, continuously improving the new system of NFR protection, enhancing the blood-making function of the inherited population, creating a new matrix of NFR brands, and building a new model of NFR protection, laying a solid foundation for promoting the creative transformation and innovative development of NFR. According to statistics, by the end of May 2022, Shenzhen has identified 222 representative projects at all levels, 176 representative inheritors of NRM at all levels, and built 39 NRM display and inheritance sites at all levels.

This issue of Shenzhen Feature Article will take NFR culture as a clue, dig deeper into the innovative design achievements of NFR culture scattered in all corners of the city, tell the story of NFR inheritance with unique Shenzhen characteristics, show the contemporary Chinese cultural confidence in Shenzhen's urban development, and help promote the innovative development of Chinese fine traditional culture represented by NFR.

New costumes for the "Three Treasures of Chaozhou

In Chaozhou, Guangdong Province, the "Chaozhou Three Treasures", consisting of three kinds of cold fruits, namely old citron, old medicinal orange and yellow-skinned black bean, is a very representative local "tongue" on the non-heritage. However, over the years, "Chaozhou three treasures" because of its simple packaging has always been neglected, to a certain extent, affecting the heritage and development. "In this context, it is urgent to create a set of unified, beautiful and distinctive visual language for the 'Chaozhou Three Treasures', so as to attract more people's attention and help its long-term and sustainable development." Yang Zhen, founder of Firewolf Design, said.

In 2019, Yang Zhen was invited to Chaozhou to collect inspiration for the packaging design of the "Chaozhou Three Treasures" when he was deeply attracted by the local non-heritage handicraft of "inlaid porcelain". This handicraft can be found everywhere in Chaoshan cities and villages, the craftsmen use colorful porcelain inlay to make various patterns or figures, lifelike, colorful, even after the vicissitudes of time, glaze silk will not fade, bright still, has a "forever bright modeling art" reputation. "All embedded porcelain works are made by folk craftsmen purely by hand, is the skill, but also art." Yang Zhen said. "Chaozhou three treasures" inlaid porcelain style packaging design is inspired by this. In the packaging image, he selected three kinds of cold fruit elements and added local landmarks such as Guangji Bridge and Guangji Building; in the color, Yang Zhen chose green, blue, yellow and red, which are often found in Chaozhou porcelain inlay; in order to restore the rich and layered color texture of porcelain inlay in flat works, Yang Zhen and his team members chose to hand-patch each color block representing porcelain blocks to reach the optimal solution.

Yang Zhen's exploration of Chaozhou's non-traditional handicrafts does not stop there. During this trip to Chaozhou, he also saw the charm of Chaozhou woodcut printmaking. This is a traditional handicraft that uses a knife and chemical ink to etch a picture on a wooden board and then photocopy it on paper, but it is becoming a "silent art culture". "The art of woodcut printmaking requires a high level of artistic attainment and rich practical experience, and must be honed from a young age, but nowadays there are few people to pass it on." Yang Zhen said. In order to wake up the dormant art, he created the woodcut style packaging for the "Chaozhou Three Treasures" again, using hand-made woodcut prints to carve and print the main elements and fonts, making the packaging with a hand-made texture. To enhance the characteristics of Chaozhou city, he also deformed the word "Chao" and incorporated the local characteristics of the eaves into the top of the font, creating a city logo that is unique to Chaozhou. With outstanding creative ideas and design techniques, the "Chaozhou Three Treasures" porcelain inlay style and the "Chaozhou Three Treasures" woodcut style packaging design won the 2022 Graphis International Design Award Gold and Silver respectively.

Building the "Lion" meta-universe

Take the bus, ride the motorcycle, test the nucleic acid, play the skateboard, dance in the street ...... This is the daily life of the "Lion King Awake". As the first generation of China's animation industry, Xu Ling always has a Chinese IP dream in his heart. Foshan native Ye Xiaomin, on the other hand, has a lion culture obsession in his heart. When the two met, the "Lion King Awake", a non-traditional IP, was born. Using the Guangdong lion as the design prototype, a series of IP products including animations, exhibits and derivatives were created, with a view to building a lion meta-universe that both integrates into contemporary life and inherits Chinese culture.
"Where there are Chinese, there will be lions." According to Xu Ling, the lion belongs to the southern lion of the Chinese lion dance, which has the meaning of good luck, warding off evil and avoiding harm, and is widely spread in overseas Chinese communities. However, under the impact of modern culture, the traditional lion dance's lion head tying technique is on the verge of being lost. In 2018, the design team, after in-depth research, invited Li Wei, the national lion head non-genetic inheritor and the 5th generation of the Li family lion, as a consultant to launch the IP design of the Lion King Ah Awake.

How to retain the traditional lion characteristics in the design without losing the contemporary trend interest? In the traditional lion dance, big eyes are one of the symbols of the lion head, and the "eye-dotting" performance has the meaning of giving life. Ye Xiaomin explained that the design of the lion is based on the red color of the Guan Gong lion in the Li family lion, hoping that it is as righteous and loyal as Guan Gong, who is also the God of Wealth, signifying prosperity. In terms of details, the big eyes of Awake become the most eye-catching symbol, and the stripes in the eyes are consistent with the tradition; the nose is borrowed from the "green nose" of the lion, and is designed in blue-green; the facial texture is based on the "knife pattern" of the traditional lion, and the The facial texture is based on the "knife pattern" of the traditional lion, with the "star mirror" transformed into black dots and incorporated into the texture; the forehead retains its unique "forehead mirror", and the outer ring of the forehead mirror and the sides of the nose have the most obvious feature of the traditional lion, the "colored small hair ball ". In this way, people will know that it is a lion when they look at Awake.

"As an IP image, Ah Awake must be a revitalized waking lion. Accordingly, Awake's body shape tends to be more like a lion, which seems to be a lively and cute animal, distinguishing it from similar lion mascots in the market." Xu Ling said, "The lion dance of folklore activities can actually be regarded as a traditional Chinese street culture. We innovatively integrate the concept of contemporary street culture into the design of Awake, creating a more visually striking external image and giving it an internal character of loving rap and street dance, so that it can enter into daily life and become a close friend of human beings living in the 'meta-universe'. As a lion in the Awake universe, Awake will also have five friends of its kind, and yellow and black lions are now available."

Dong Cloth's "Adventure" in Urban Life
Do you know Dong bright cloth? When you first meet it, it exudes a purple-black metallic luster and a thick, stiff feel that resembles leather and paper. This is a unique fabric used in the making of Dong festival dresses, which has a history of hundreds of years so far. The Dong bright cloth is at risk of being lost because it takes more than 30 complicated procedures and thousands of hammering months to make. Xie Hui, associate professor of the School of Art and Design of Shenzhen Vocational Institute of Technology, and Xie Lina, creative director of the School's Institute of Cultural and Creative Products, have joined hands to launch the "Dong Art - Cloth Perfect Re-creation Project", which attempts to bring Dong cloth into contemporary urban life through artistic design thinking and explore new solutions for the inheritance of non-heritage culture with a wider range of innovative practices.

The connection with Dong cloth originated from a public welfare project of rural revitalization in 2014 in cooperation with school enterprises. "At that time, we went to Tongguan in Liping, Guizhou and Sanbao Dong Village in Rongjiang, visited the local traditional crafts such as hand weaving and natural grass wood dyeing in depth, and were deeply attracted by the Dong bright cloth." Xie Hui recalls, "The metallic luster that permeates it comes from the fact that in the production the craftsmen apply cowhide glue and egg white and embed the protein and other tissues into the fabric fibers through multiple pounding to achieve a certain color fixing and brightening effect. This luster not only can well present the flashy Dong festival dress, and looks very sci-fi and futuristic, which is very suitable for the current trend."
"Popularization is the best revitalization of non-heritage, and use is the best cultural inheritance." Xie Hui said that by uniting local craftsmen, dyeing and weaving experts, with the help of modern chemical technology, hand in hand with professional manufacturers to improve the process, solving the problem of Dong cloth's poor color fixation and single color; by integrating resources for collaborative innovation, opening up the links of material source, production supply and marketing channels, gradually establishing the Dong cloth industry ecosystem; renovating the art concept and lifestyle, using Dong cloth as the fabric base, designing money clips, We also hold various forms of aesthetic experiments and art exhibitions to bring young people to participate in the creation and reshape the new generation's understanding of tradition and fashion.

As a purely hand-woven fabric, there are still problems such as fabric defects and waste of edge remnants in the industrialization process. Xie Huo and Xie Lina launched the Dong cloth recycling project under the name of "Cloth Perfection". "We want to accept the 'imperfections' of hand-made Dong fabrics. The 'perfection of cloth' is beauty." Lina Xie said that the seemingly imperfect texture is the accidental surprise, the accumulation of emotions and the mark of time in each hand-made process. As designers, we create a fashionable collection of Dong fabric jewelry by folding fabric pieces and nesting them with metal, where the sheen of the fabric echoes the metal. By combining the bendable and flexible wisdom screen technology as thin as a cicada wing with Dong cloth, we innovated the "Wisdom Soft Bag", which breaks the perception of the function of fiber fabric and brings more possibilities for non-genetic heritage.

The Many Forms of Incense Vessels
The art of incense making has been practiced in China for thousands of years, and incense culture has become an integral part of our traditional culture. How does the traditional incense ceremony fit into modern human life? Designer Ma Shenguang brings more imagination to the production of incense vessels based on contemporary art design aesthetics. The incense burner "Mountain Beyond Mountain" is his first incense burner designed in 2014, inspired by Chinese landscape bonsai, the body of the burner is carved from a single piece of brass, and then inlaid with purple sandalwood. When the incense is lit, the curling smoke rises from the stove like clouds rising from a river, stretching across the mountains and rivers to the sky.

"In fact, every designer has a product dream, a furniture dream." Ma Shenguang admits that in 2011, the 26th World University Summer Games in Shenzhen allowed him, as a graphic designer, to enter the ranks of product design. After that, a chance opportunity, he was in Hainan and an incense collector bonded, embarked on the creation of incense ware road. "Product design, the application of new technologies, new materials is critical, it can change the traditional incense-making process, and to achieve standardization, mass production." Ma Shenguang said, "At that time, many crafts were still stuck in the realm of traditional arts and crafts, and I wanted to do something different. With the idea, I proceeded to the design and production of 'Mountain Beyond Mountain', producing sketches and engineering drawings, making the design ideas into data, and then starting the machine for production. After that, I was overwhelmed in product design, first making 200 pieces of artifacts; then because the artifacts needed space to present, I got involved in space design and designed more than 100 pieces of furniture."

Ma Shenguang has a different idea of treating NRMs: one should distinguish between the "traditional" and "commodity" parts of them. The traditional part should be inherited in its original form, not innovated, so that what belongs to the museum belongs to the museum, giving people to nostalgia and research, that is the past; while using "non-heritage elements" to make products, belongs to the commodity, is the present, is the future, should strive for innovation; the two should not be confused. Product design is a modern expression of traditional elements, not a replica, and should seek "meaning" rather than "form"; it needs to be functional and practical, so that it can be integrated into modern home life and achieve a "living" heritage. The "living" heritage.

The Awakening of Tin
Shenzhen in May was not as hot as in previous years. We rode the summer breeze to the Slow Matter studio and completed a tin explosion experiment under the guidance of Slow Matter founder Zeng Lingbo - the hot molten tin liquid was poured into cold water, accompanied by a subtle bursting sound, and instantly condensed into a tin block. These "explosions" are named "explosive": their shape is randomly determined by the angle, speed and temperature of the tin and water encounter, or clean, or bizarre shape, can be seen as a small art installation, but also can be made into clothing accessories.
This "experiment of tin" started in 2016. Zeng Lingbo discovered by chance that tin has an extremely low melting point and can be easily formed into various forms, making it a very malleable material for creation. At the same time, he also saw the dilemma faced by the inheritance and innovation of tin ware making skills, "More than 6,000 years ago, the combination of tin and copper gave birth to the bronze civilization. Tin was often made into tea sets, wine sets, ritual objects, wedding items, literary objects and other supplies. But in modern times, the development of tin less and less people, tin skills inheritors also mostly adhere to the ancient method, its ancient and traditional visual language is difficult to integrate into contemporary life. "Zeng Lingbo said. In order to let the tin material regain a new life, he set up a team of "tin woodwork" in 2016, invited the Chinese arts and crafts masters, Yunnan Province, the spot tin skills of non-genetic inheritors Lai Qingguo as a professional adviser, began a series of creative experiments with "tin" as the carrier.

The "Yisheng Tea Warehouse" is one of the results of the series of experiments. The team hollowed out the mahogany remnants into a tin can and melted tin into the interior. As the tin liquid fills the gaps in the wood, it forms a tin lining on the inside. "The combination of wood and tin liquid is not easy." Zeng Lingbo explained, "The metal is not sticky and permeable, and it is difficult for the tin liquid to flow into the gap and fuse naturally with the wood. To solve this problem, we used modern oil pressure equipment, using high pressure to squeeze the tin liquid into the gaps. At the same time in the wood multiple holes, when the tin liquid into the holes solidified, between the liner and the wood, will form a kind of buckle mortise and tenon structure, cured tin liquid is like 'claws' firmly grasped in the wood. "
Interestingly, "Yayoi Tea Barn" is also a typical work of finding the beauty of uselessness and fragmentation. The main raw material for "Yayoi Tea Barn" is the inexpensive Rosewood. The natural distortion of the wood is such that the utilization rate of the wood is less than 20% even for small pieces. Through the exclusive production technology developed by Slow Matter, tin is melted and filled inside the broken wood, making it fuse into a new whole, presenting different natural strokes, such as wild cursive strokes, like a trickle of water, like a river of stars. "The addition of tin not only turns waste into beauty and treasure, but also is a continuation of the spirit of maintaining reverence and respect for nature." In Zeng Lingbo's view, it is meaningless to be retro. A series of creations about tin not only let people know tin again, but also incorporated the designer's observation and thinking about the philosophy of creation, environmental view and life view, which is the value of non-retro design.

Article Source:艺术与设计

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