Cultural heritage is a synchronized relationship involving society (systems of interactions connecting people), norms, and values (ideas such as belief systems that attribute relative importance). Symbols, technologies, and objects are tangible evidence of underlying norms and values. Thus, they establish a symbiotic relationship between the tangible and intangible. Intangible heritage should be regarded as a larger framework in which tangible heritage takes on shape and significance within.

On this beautiful day of the harvesting season in autumn, when hundreds of fruits and grains are ripening and trees in the mountains and fields are tinging maple colours, I am very delighted and filled with the feeling of great honor that our Centre of UNESCO for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia and Pacific Region (ICHCAP) is privileged to host this year International Conference on Safeguarding ICH to reflect on the creative values and productive utility of our intangible heritage that our forefathers have inherited to us.

The Cultural Heritage Administration of Korea (CHA) is a governmental organization that plans and implements cultural heritage policy in the Republic of Korea. CHA has Director of ICT management in charge of plan and implementation of master plans for digitalization and information of cultural heritage and database construction and management of archival information about preservation and management of cultural heritage. This report introduces two main projects that are part of CHA’s digital data construction of cultural heritage: the “3D Database Construction of Cultural Heritage” and the “Seoul City Wall Time Machine”. Establishment of 3D Database of Cultural Heritage CHA has used cutting-edge digital technologies to document original forms of cultural heritage and their changes in order to obtain and use raw data for restoration of cultural heritage that is destroyed or damaged. CHA has also carried out state-led projects of digital archiving to collect, share and perpetually save archives produced by each governmental department and provincial government.

Since Korea has undergone the fierce contemporary history through the Japanese colonial era and the Korean War, the Korean government enacted the Cultural Heritage Protection Act in 1962 for safeguarding and transmitting Korean cultural heritage. In this act, the term intangible cultural heritage (ICH) was officially coined as a legal concept, and provisions were prepared to designate and safeguard ICH at the national level. Thus, the Korean legal system for safeguarding ICH was established forty years before the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (2003).

Engaging the youth in the safeguarding and promotion of intangible cultural heritage has been a priority for intangible cultural heritage experts in the Republic of South Korea. In the present research, I therefore seek to briefly examine the issue of youth engagement in Korean intangible cultural heritage system through the lens of critical theory of youth engagement. By examining current programs developed and implemented for, with and by the youth, I would like to identify the dynamics that inform the engagement of young people in the safeguarding and promotion of Korean intangible cultural heritage. Among many other things, I argue that, the youth-adult relationship significantly influences both the operation and outcome of the existing programs. And in a broader sense, such evolving relationship should be understood as manifestation of the symbolic dynamics currently informing the operation of intangible cultural heritage system in the Republic of South Korea as well as the expected outcomes of intangible cultural heritage safeguarding and promotion.

The 2003 Convention plays a major role in safeguarding the Intangible Cultural Heritage. It is the first international legal instrument that has focused on the traditional elements of life. To date, more than 508 elements of more than 122 countries have been registered in the UNESCO nomination list of Intangible Cultural Heritage. The number has been increasing every year. It validates the value of the Intangible Cultural Heritage to the world. The Republic of Korea, which has more than fifty years of history in Intangible cultural heritage preservation, is one of the leading countries in the Intangible Cultural Heritage Preservation. This paper has intended to study one of the UNESCO nominated ICH elements of traditional dance performances i.e. Ganggangsullae of Korea and see the impacts after its nomination. Ganggangsullae has been successfully safeguarded in Korea. Its inclusion in the education curriculum has made it possible to disseminate its historical significance and values to the younger generation. Despite the effort of the state, Ganggangsullae seems to lack the interest of the people. It is an important issue to understand the reasons and find ways to revive its essence rather than being confined to the documents.

This publication contains papers from the 2021 World Intangible Cultural Heritage Forum held online for three days, from September 29 to October 1, 2021. The event was hosted by the National Intangible Heritage Center and organized by ICHCAP.\n\nThe forum was held under the theme of “Rediscovering Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Era of Convergence and Creativity” to re-examine the creative value of intangible cultural heritage and present the possibilities by examining examples of innovation and value creation through intangible cultural heritage.

Intangible cultural heritage is a culmination of insight and wisdom for life. Intangible cultural heritage that has been passed down over the years affect our value systems in the present. It is also likely that this will continue in the future given a similar environment. Thus the transmission of intangible cultural heritage as the spiritual source behind tangible heritage is important. Intangible cultural heritage allows us to understand the past, find wisdom for the present, and predict the future. We can learn about the values, social consciousness and worldview that people held in the past through intangible cultural heritage. This then becomes a tool to understand the people of the present and predict the future based on the past. Thus, as the history of humanity progresses, the greater the need becomes to analyze the cultural elements accumulated in tradition. As people in modern society face the pressures of urbanization, industrialization and intense competition, intangible cultural heritage provides the spiritual comfort of a homecoming by reviving the nation’s cultural memory.