Inheritors of traditional embroidery of Buyi ethnic minority study modern costume designs at Shanghai University. Photo: SHINE

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With the intensifying of the protection of intangible cultural heritage, the innovation of traditional crafts has been in the spotlight, of which the introduction of modern design has become an important approach.

Traditional crafts represent ethnic, regional and rural culture, particularly farming culture. They are an art form and social product.

Modern design, originating from the West, is the result of industrial civilization, often labeled with world, modern, innovative, commercial and other cultural tags. It is the product of modern technology, aesthetics and economy.

In other words, traditional crafts are anchored in the past; they are a material representation of past lifestyles. Modern design, however, focuses on the present and serves current society.
From a historical perspective, the unity of traditional craft and modern design stems from them both being technological forces serving society during a specific historical period.
However, as these two different technical forces have strong heterogeneity in connotation and operation, we should pay full attention to the impact of modern design on traditional crafts.

 

Symbiotic relationship
Literally, traditional crafts and modern design seem to reside in the opposite dimensions of tradition and modernity, but in fact they are closely related. Modern design was born in the transition from handicrafts to industrial production. In a broad sense, all traditional artisans have some knowledge of design work, since no matter what kind of material, layout or technique they apply, it requires planning and design. However, this kind of planning and design is often not systematic, and it often adopts a “change it as it goes” attitude, so the passed-on wisdom is implicit. 

In contrast, modern design emphasizes systematic, scientific and innovative mastery of knowledge. Supported by modern technology, such design is often specialized and standardized, so its knowledge and skills can be acquired through systematic education and training, which falls under the purview of explicit knowledge.

In modern times, the integration of traditional technology and modern design is an important way for the two parties to achieve innovation. On the one hand, modern design seeks a connotation of culture and an emotional appeal in its use of traditional craft resources. In the past, modern design focused too much on functionality and commercial interests, but as society evolves, modern design is also taking on humanistic concerns and ethical awareness. Incorporating traditional crafts is becoming essential for modern design to highlight cultural identity through localization and nationalization.

On the other hand, in the era of industrialization, urbanization and modernization, traditional crafts are actively or passively drawn to modern design so as to cater to current aesthetics and ensure increased income and survival. In the process of intangible heritage protection, modern design can bring energy to the cultural genes of traditional crafts. Modern design not only satisfies people’s needs for traditional culture, but also gives traditional crafts a fashionable appearance, greatly boosting the production, consumption, inheritance and transmission of traditional handicraft products.

 

Forms of cooperation
Modern design is part of the academic knowledge system. Against the backdrop of intangible heritage protection, the knowledge system and structure of traditional crafts has gradually changed, and the relatively closed inheritance system and knowledge structure has shown inclusiveness and openness.

In the field of traditional crafts, some artists with foresight and learning ability have begun to seek innovation, actively embracing new technologies and design ideas. The training program for inheritors of China’s intangible cultural heritage, launched by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, provides systematic training for inheritors through colleges and universities, aiming to enhance their innovative capacity.

The establishment of this training mechanism is a breakthrough for inheritors because their knowledge system is embedded in each individual, being empirical and distinctive with more emphasis on inheritance than innovation. In this light, modern design can expand their knowledge base in terms of modernity, science and innovation. If the inheritors can understand and comprehend this knowledge well and internalize it in their own knowledge system, it will be conducive to the long-term development of the traditional crafts they master. This type of modern design introduction is endogenous, committed to adjusting inheritors’ knowledge structure in a sustainable manner.

At the same time, there is also close cooperation between inheritors and designers. It is a model based on professional division of labor and collaborative innovation, with designers leading the design process and inheritors providing technical support.

In an embroidery training program at Shanghai University, a team of masters consisting of eight national inheritors of embroidery, 20 Chinese top designers and artists, and one international textile artist carried out a series of customized embroidery works, involving clothes, shoes, household products, dolls, leather goods, jewelry and contemporary art, attracting quite a lot of attention.

There is no doubt that through this kind of cooperation, designers can contribute their insights in fashion, planning and ideas, and the craftsmen can give full play to their skills, producing products that are a good blend of fashion and tradition and that have high market value. This will certainly promote traditional crafts in modern life. 

However, the cooperation between inheritors and designers could also be a clash between two different value systems and cultures. Due to the inherent deficiency of the knowledge system of inheritors, designers are often dominant in the design process, leaving inheritors at the risk of being marginalized.

 

Impact on traditional crafts
In whatever ways modern design is introduced to traditional crafts, the impact should not be overlooked.

From a positive perspective, modern design broadens the knowledge structure of the inheritors and can improve their creativity and productivity. In traditional society, the craftsman is familiar with the whole chain of the craftsmanship, acting as both a designer and a practitioner. Their creation takes root in the traditional context and pays attention to the local meaning of the theme. Most of the crafts pursue integrity and completeness in modeling, brightness and enrichment in color, and pragmatism and realism in style, which all together is pure artistic creation.

Modern design, under the dual effects of industrialization and commercialization, focuses more on rationality and aesthetic formality. From design sketch to execution, it shows controllability and standardization.

When inheritors of traditional crafts take modern design classes, modern ideas are injected into the traditional system of creation, inevitably causing a revolution in traditional crafts’ material, modeling and decoration in order to create products that conform to modern aesthetics.

However, it must be noted that modern design has always been the property of a commercial society, with the purpose of making profit. In design practice, inheritors should not direct their eyes solely to profit and market. Rather, they should be encouraged to preserve the techniques and cultural characteristics of traditional crafts, keeping tradition at the core, in order to improve product quality through modern design while achieving a win-win cooperation.
 

From a negative perspective, the introduction of modern design into traditional crafts is not a mature process, so a lot could be at stake. In particular, inheritors have difficulty taking control in the “inheritors + designers” cooperation, and they often lack objective and scientific evaluation of their cooperation. Designers’ understanding of traditional crafts is sometimes deconstructive, fragmented or even meaningless. Even if the inheritors participate in design, they can only make design decisions for the part of the product where their skills will be needed, but it is difficult to predict the final draft of a product.

In most cases, products of such cooperation actually go beyond the essence of a traditional craft, and instead become modern products with traditional elements. For example, silk tapestry art is applied to the design of women’s shoes, and bamboo weaving techniques are applied to the design of lamps and lanterns. Inheritors are only responsible for the “skill” part, but cannot decide the product’s functions, materials and styles. So it’s more like a division of labor as per industrialization.

As a result, for inheritors, only when modern design is integrated into their knowledge system and transformed into an endogenous way of thinking and endogenous skills can it gain vitality and sustainability. The cooperation mechanism between inheritors and designers also needs to be further improved to respect the dominant position of inheritors. For crafts produced by inheritors and designers in cooperation, though they may have obvious advantages in both market effect and cultural representation, their identity as derivatives should be clarified to distinguish them from  traditional intangible cultural products.

 

Sun Facheng is from the College of Creative Culture and Communication at Zhejiang Normal University.

​(edited by YANG XUE)