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The Kyrgyz Shyrdagy FestivalThe Kyrgyz Shyrdagy Festival was inaugurally organized in 2010 by felt carpets producers in Kyrgyzstan, after UNESCO inscribed the traditional Kyrgyz felt carpets ala-kiyiz and shyrdak into the List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding.\n\nThe festival is held every year in June in the mountainous Naryn region, famous for its felt carpets. The festival is managed by the Craft Council of Kyrgyzstan under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture and the Information and Tourism of Kyrgyz Republic with the support of the regional administration and in partnership with the local crafts communities, NGOs, international agencies, and private businesses.\n\nThe goals of the festival are to attract social attention to the necessity of safeguarding the art of traditional Kyrgyz felt carpets, to develop the local market of the felt carpets, and to develop event/cultural tourism, especially in remote mountainous areas of Kyrgyzstan.\n\nThe art of making felt carpets among Kyrgyz has ancient historical roots dating back to the first century BCE. Felt carpets are an important decorative component in the yurt, the traditional nomadic dwelling of Kyrgyz people, which is used by local residents in everyday life.\n\nThe process of making felt carpets is a socializing, unifying factor. It involves all family members and often relatives and neighbors. During the joint work, knowledge and skills are interactively transmitted by the older generation to young people.\n\nIn the past, felt carpets were not intended for sale; they were passed down from generation to generation, playing the sacred role in the family as an ancestral memory of the mother. Therefore, the carpet ornamentation was marked individually by the woman-creator—an imagery of the benevolence or the blessing of the mother to her descendants.\n\nShyrdak felt carpet today is a popular product on the local tourist market and international craft market, providing a significant income for rural women. Being exported to western countries, shyrdak carpets are highly appreciated as handmade eco-friendly products with unique ornamentation.\n\nWith about three hundred crafts artisans and participants, the Kyrgyz Shyrdagy Festival has become a national holiday, recognizing the Kyrgyz people’s cultural values. Residents of neighboring villages go to the festival, dressed in traditional festive clothes. At the festival, attention is given to master classes of the carriers of knowledge of ancient felt-making methods and contests are held for felt carpet producers to better carpet preservation.\n\nIn the past festivals, seventy craftspeople were awarded with diplomas and monetary prizes from state institutions and private foundations. Twenty-five awarded shyrdaks were gifted by organizers to five leading museums in Kyrgyzstan. In 2018, within the framework of the festival, it is planned to hold an international conference on preserving traditional crafts with the participation of the National Commission for UNESCO, museum representatives, and tourism and craft organizations.\n\nThe Kyrgyz Shyrdagy Festival is currently a meeting point for artisans, traders, representatives of travel companies, scientists, and aficionados of felt carpets from Kyrgyzstan and other countries. It promotes the development of the craft market in Kyrgyzstan and other regions, consequently improving the living standards and social status of artisans. The festival also demonstrates the inseparability of cultural ties between generations, stimulating young people to study, preserve, and develop traditional crafts and drawing the attention to preserving Kyrgyz ICH.\n\nPhoto : Shyrdagy festival photo © Photographer Urmat Osmoev CACSARC-kgYear2018NationKyrgyzstan
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ICH in Public Transport: Truck Art in PakistanListed on the UNESCO Register of Good Safeguarding Practices, the Oselvar boat was resurrected from near-extinction when the Os Båtbyggjarlag Boat-Builders Guild, Os municipality, and Hordaland County founded the non-profit boatyard and workshop foundation Oselvarverkstaden in 1997 with the support of the Arts Council Norway. The Oselvar boat used to be western Norway’s main mode of transportation and, as predominantly known, it is a Norwegian cultural icon that symbolizes the kingdom’s leisure craft. On the other hand, Costa Rica’s carreta or traditional oxcart is the Central American country’s most famous craft. Inscribed on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2008 (though originally proclaimed in 2005), the traditional oxcart used to transport coffee beans in a ten-to-fifteen-day journey, from Costa Rica’s central valley over the mountains to Puntaneras on the Pacific coast. As a mode of transport, it lingers on a mobility that is built around agriculture, transcending a cultural aesthetics informed by rural imaginary. The presence alone of carreta is an explicit call to end deforestation and be much more mindful about climate change. The Oselvar boat of Norway and Costa Rica’s traditional oxcart are two living examples of the creative union between transportation and craft so that we may see public transportation as a cultural understanding of intangible heritage.\n\nThe South Asian nation of Pakistan, with its twenty-six national highways and three strategic highways, does not shy away from parading the abundance and importance of ICH in public roads. Pakistan’s truck art, the largest art industry in the country, is a living construction of identity by making visible a host of cultural signifiers, from religious piety to popular imagination. Albeit there is no economic benefit from decorating a truck, and even though such undertaking costs at least a whooping USD 2000 back in 2011, it has been the norm, according to Jamal J. Elias, for fleet owners to have their trucks decorated. Since 96% of the freight in Pakistan is carried by trucks, one can easily imagine the widespread presence of truck art. Focusing on the art in the craft of vehicular decoration, as well as on pleasure, protection, and suffering experienced by truck drivers, Anna Schmid contends that truck art is a form of popular culture in which central societal assumptions and values are contested in that truck art, by the very process of putting it in the public sphere, puts social mobility in a terrain bounded by semiotics or the study of signs and how these signs meaningfully interact with each other in religious, political, and cultural terms. Schmid draws truck construction by highlighting the specialized craftsmen principally responsible for it: blacksmiths (who attach a steel skeleton to the chassis to hold the body and the driver’s cabin), the body makers (who create the body composed of wooden pine slats held together by metal and wooden cross-pieces), lacquerers (who spray paint the body), upholsterers (who install the seat of the cabin), and the painters (who apply motifs and other necessary decorations).\n\nUnsuspecting the ethnic diversity of Pakistani society, on the basis of categorical decorative motifs such as explicit religious symbols and images, talismanic and fetish objects, talismanically or religiously loaded symbols, idealized elements of life, elements from modern life, the non-religious calligraphic program of the truck, Jamal J. Elias, a scholar who thoroughly examined the typologies and evolution of truck art and proposed five regional styles of truck art: Punjabi, Swati, Peshawar, Baluchi, and Karachi styles.\n\nTruck art is an exemplary case to theorize that the process of understanding ICH is a public work, a work that compels mediation and collective valuation. Something that transforms personal sentiments into public feelings. And what’s more interesting about the truck art of Pakistan, other than it being an industry of its own, is its direct connection to transportation—that a vessel practically meant to transport a commodity from one place to another actually carries something more than what it does, and it does beyond time and place, connecting cities and regions that ultimately become unknowable large-scale social processes. Indeed, when a symbol travels, its meaning exponentially multiplies.\n\nPhoto : Truck art ⓒ B.B.P. HosmilloYear2019NationPakistan
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Revitalizing the ICH of a Million Village Goddesses in IndiaVisually imposing sites often catch the imagination of the public. But there is often more than the monumental that informs local’s and visitor’s experiences. Few realize the importance of local civic spaces that demonstrate community benefits from safeguarding heritage in all its manifestations. Engagement with the local primary stakeholders and their spaces reveals deep knowledge for pilgrimage, tourism, education, and recreation. Safeguarding intangible cultural heritage (ICH) requires benefit analysis and integrated local area planning through a bottom up praxis for sustainability.\n\nA promising development in Amaravathi Heritage Town, Andhra Pradesh, birthplace of Mahayana Buddhism, is a major program for safeguarding its tangible and intangible heritage. Known to the outside world for its famous Amaravathi School of Buddhist Art, recent systematic cultural mapping revealed 2,900-year layers of history and a rich inventory of intangible heritage. Significant is the first Government Order for safeguarding the Balusulamma Thalli Gudi or temple. Its archaeological and historical importance is amplified through the collective memories and living heritage of Balusulamma as the village patron goddess of the ancient Dharanikota.\n\nTwo hundred years ago, local king Raja Vasi Reddy Venkatadri Naidu used to dismount his elephant on returning home from other villages and make offerings to Balusulamma. Last month, his direct descendants on an annual pilgrimage visited the place during the harvest festival and conducted vermillion or Kumkuma Puja for Balusulamma. They are now sponsoring an onsite educational room built strictly according to traditional architecture and in partnership with the Amaravathi Heritage Centre and Museum.\n\nThe priest or pujari, potter Sambayya, is reviving famous Dharanikota pottery traditions. Scaled drawings of the cultural space were prepared by the School of Planning and Architecture, Vijayawada. Local farmers are assisting with documentation and the use of the cultural space for revitalizing the diversity of intangible heritage. The landscape has been carefully fenced. Five solar lamps, a water tank, and boring pump have been installed. A gateway has been constructed and landscaping is preventing soil erosion.\n\nThe rachhabanda or traditional meeting place under the large 200-year-old Banyan tree has been renovated with smooth granite. It is being used by the local village administration, school groups, and families. Everyone loves the ambience of the place, irrespective of caste, faith, age, and other cultural affiliation. The access road to the temple, along with drainage, has been completed. Festivities that have revived the intangible heritage of the place are once again bringing back people from the surrounding twenty-three villages. The Village Vathavaranam or village ambience is revitalized. It is a concept that is rarely addressed in critical heritage discourse.\n\nBalusulamma Thalli Gudi is an illustration of locating culture in development in safeguarding intangible heritage through integrated local area planning. There are about 14,000 villages in the state and an estimated 100,000 shrines to a high number of village goddesses across its thirteen districts—perhaps a million of heritage-rich sites in India. They are the bedrock of Andhra and Telugu culture and Indian heritage. They provide the essence of what it is to experience village atmosphere in the face of rapid urbanization and globalization.\n\nBalusulamma signifies culture as an essential component of human development as it is a source of identity, innovation, and creativity for the village life in India. UNESCO emphasizes that many people, especially the poor, depend directly on ecosystems for their livelihood, and, in effect, their economic, social, and physical well-being, including nonetheless their cultural heritage. Balusulamma Gudi is also a good representative example of the UNESCO 2011 Recommendation on Historic Cultural Landscapes and the 2003 Convention on Safeguarding Intangible Heritage. The value and role of community cultural reclamation and responsible tourism through safeguarding and promotion of heritage landscapes is better understood in Amaravathi Heritage Town.\n\nPhoto : Local folk theater revitalized © Amareswar GallaYear2018NationIndia
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People on Vanuatu’s Malekula Island Speak More than 30 Indigenous Languages. Here’s Why We Must Record ThemMalekula, the second-largest island in the Vanuatu archipelago, has a linguistic connection to Aotearoa. All of its many languages are distantly related to te reo Māori, and the island is the site of a long-term project to document them.\n\nVanuatu has been described as the world’s “densest linguistic landscape,” with as many as 145 languages spoken by a population of fewer than 300,000 people.\n\nMalekula itself is home to about 25,000 people, who among them speak more than thirty indigenous languages. Some are spoken by just a few hundred people.\n\nIndigenous languages around the world are declining at a rapid rate, dying out with the demise of their last speakers. The UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues estimates one indigenous language dies every two weeks. As each language disappears, its unique cultural expression and world views are lost as well. Our project in Malekula hopes to counter this trend.\n\nMalekula Languages\nThe work in Malekula began in the 1990s when the late Terry Crowley hosted a Neve’ei-speaking university student from a small village. The encounter inspired his interest in the island’s many Indigenous languages.\n\nThe Malekula project works with communities to facilitate literacy initiatives, often in the form of unpublished children’s books and thematic dictionaries. The research highlights the value of Indigenous languages as an expression of local cultural identity. The Malekula project is a response to the urgent need to record the island’s indigenous languages in the face of significant changes to almost every aspect of traditional life. These changes have brought indigenous languages into contact and competition with colonial English and French and the home-grown Bislama, a dialect of Melanesian pidgin. From education to religion, administration, and domestic life, Bislama is now often the language of choice.\n\nWhy is that a problem? The value of indigenous languages lies in the fact that they articulate the way in which people have engaged with and understood their natural environment.\n\nMalekula has a 3,000-year history of human settlement. Each language spoken on the island encodes unique ways in which its speakers have sustained life. Indigenous languages preserve ways in which people engage with their environment.\n\nAnother fundamental aspect of indigenous languages is their direct link to cultural identity. In a place where distinctive local identities are the norm, the increasing use of Bislama reduces the linguistic diversity that has been sustained for millennia.\n\nIn recent times, the way of life for the people of Malekula has shifted from intensely local communities to broader formal education. Imported religions have similarly influenced local belief systems.\n\nThe same centralized governance that facilitates infrastructure development and access to medical care also affects the autonomy of small communities to govern their affairs, including the languages in which children are taught.\n\nTraditionally, linguistic field research has produced valuable research for a highly specialist linguistic audience. Most scholars had no expectation of returning their research to the community of speakers. We initially followed this tradition in writing about the Neverver language of Malekula but grew increasingly dissatisfied with the expectations of the discipline. Looking to modern decolonizing research methodologies and ethical guidelines in Aotearoa, we developed the “first audience principle.” This means indigenous language communities should be the first to hear about any field research findings.\n\nIn 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic and travel bans brought linguistic fieldwork to an abrupt halt. During this unwelcome hiatus from fieldwork with Malekula communities, it has been tempting to focus on more technical analysis for our fellow academics. But our obligation to communities remains, and we are developing new ways of working with our archived field data in preparation for the time when we can return to Malekula.\n\nThis article is based on the free flow of information, the creative commons from https://theconversation.com For the original source with additional links, please visit https://theconversation.com/people-on-vanuatus-malekula-island-speak-more-than-30-indigenous-languages-heres-why-we-must-record-them\n\nPhoto : Indigenous languages preserve ways in which people engage with their environment. CCBY Royce Dodd, Author providedYear2021NationVanuatu
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Different Communities in Nepal Celebrates Shrawan Shukla PurnimaNepal is a diverse country, which is reflected in the rituals, traditional festivals and practices. Even the same day is celebrated by different ethnic communities with different practices and even name it differently. One of the examples is the celebration of full moon on Shrawan Shukla, which fell on 22nd August this year. Different communities within Nepal celebrated this day in different ways.\n\nFor the shamans of ethnic communites: Tamang, Magar, Rai, Limbu, and Gurung, who are commonly known as Jhakris, Shrawan Shukla’s full moon day is an important day. They perform special rituals in the various temples. In the sacred sites like Gosaikunda Lake in the mountain, there is an annual fair. Shamans trek to those sites and perform rituals along with singing and dancing the whole night. Also the junior shamans get graduated from the senior shaman after special rituals. Besides shaman many trek for days to reach those sites for this day and watch the shamans perform and pay homage to the site.\n\nBrahmins celebrate this day as Janai Purnima. On this day they change the sacred thread called Janai, which they wear on their body. People are seen taking bath in the holy rivers and lakes, after performing the rituals and changing sacred thread. Many Hindus also tie a sacred thread on their wrist with the Brahmin priest. Many priests are seen within the premises of different temples (either Hindu or Buddhist), tying the threads on the wrists and putting tika (mixture of vermilion and uncooked rice) on the forehead in exchange of some offerings.\n\nMadeshi communites of Nepal celebrate this day as a Rakshaya Bandahan or Rakhi. This is the special day for brothers and sisters as sisters tie a sacred thread with decorations on the wrist of brothers. Brothers showers sisters with gifts in return. This is a beautiful ritual to strengthen the bond between siblings and celebrate. Brothers and sisters travel a long distance to reach the place of their brothers/ sisters to celebrate this day. Rakhi is also celebrated in most of the communiites in India as well. Now a lot of non-Madeshi communites in Nepal are also celebrating this ritual of tying rakhi on brother’s wrist. This tradition is now crossing the ethnic and communal boundaries, and setting the example of cultural acceptance.\n\nLikewise, Newa communities of Nepal celebrate this day as Kwati Punhi. On this day nine different beans soup are eaten known as Kwati, which literally translates as hot liquid. Also the offerings of these beans mixtures to different deities and temples are done. Traditionally the day to eat protein rich food was set after the laborious work of monsoon in paddy field.\n\nThe same day Newa community also performs the rituals called Byā jā nakegu, the ritual to feed rice and beans to frogs. This is an ancient farming tradition, which is still continued in the outskirts of cities of Kathmandu. Farmers believe frogs help in bringing rain that is important for paddy planation. Still many farmers are seen will small portions of beans and cooked rice in small green leaves and leaving in the field.\n\nThis day not only reflects the cultural and ethnic diversity in Nepal but also deep-rooted connection of nature, people and practices. Either be it a Shaman ritual or Hindu rituals of changing sacred thread, all have associations with nature. Not just the continuity of the practices but we also need to teach the underlying message of nature conservation and suitability to the younger generations.\n\nPhoto : Hindu Priests tying sacred thread to people in the premise of temples © Monalisa MaharjanYear2021NationNepal
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Ganggangsullae Public Event, a Play under the MoonlightThe Ganggangsullae public event was held on the morning of May 22 at Unrimsanbang Square in Jindo-gun. Ganggangsullae, a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity and Korea’s National ICH, presents performances to the general public every year, sponsored by the National Intangible Heritage Center and the Korea Cultural Heritage Foundation. Ganggangsullae bearers and the members of the preservation committee performed at the event.\n\nGanggangsullae is a song, a dance, and a game. The basic composition of the song is that the lead singer sings the chant, followed by a group of people singing ‘ganggangsullae’. It was important to sing with good lyrics. Sometimes the singers quoted lyrics from pansori and folk songs, but also wrote lyrics about what he/she saw and experienced in his/her daily life. A good lead singer was so important that he/she was called from various villages during the Ganggangsullae season.\n\nThe basic dance with singing is to go round and round in a circle. Start by holding hands with the people on either side and skipping counterclockwise in a circle. Sometimes a person enters a circle and dances, forming several small circles, straight lines, and curves.\n\nThe exciting dance soon leads to play. The formation is moved between the round ganggangsullae, which is called sullaenori. Ganggangsullae and sullaenori together are called ganggangsullae.1. The game encourages the spectators to make a louder sound, and the yard is filled with people’s excitement through the round circles made by joining hands.\n\nTherefore, Ganggangsullae can be called a festival in name and reality. A big festival was held on the full moon in January, Baekjung in July and Chuseok in August, centering on the Southwest Sea coast, and a crowd of young people from the village led the game of Ganggangsullae. It was mainly led by women, but men and women performed together.\n\nPeople gathered in the yard of the wealthy noble men, the sandy beach, and the riverside sand. The villages were officially united to play, and there were people who climbed the mountain and crossed over to visit other villages. Ganggangsullae was a festival that excited young people to the point where they went on an expedition by hiking at night.\n\nPlay induces improvisation. In the past, there was no set order, nor formation, and people played however they wanted to play. Every little thing that they saw and experienced in their daily life became the lyrics of a song, and it became a song by adding melodies. The lyrics to sing along were different for each region. In this village, it was called ‘Ganggangsullae’, while in other villages it was called ‘Ugwangganggangsullae’, ‘ganggangdosullae’, ‘sullaeyaha’, and ‘gwanggwangsullae’.\n\nHolding hands can only be accomplished with someone else. The same goes for dancing and playing to the beat. In Ganggangsullae, a person can experience becoming a member of a community. Because we played together between people, generations, and villages, the things that were there and those that didn’t exist flowed and mixed with ease. It can be inferred that ‘Ganggangsullae’, which everyone sings together, has the power to give diversity and a sense of belonging.\n\nPicture 1: Ganggangsullae © Daejeon Metropolitan City, Korea Open Government License Type 1, Source\nPicture 2: Ganggangsullae of Haeundae Daeboreum © Busan Metropolitan City, Korea Open Government License Type 1. SourceYear2022NationSouth Korea
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Performing Tradition in Indonesian Channel: A Case of Informal Heritage Education through Communities and State CollaborationThe wide construction of heritage and its symbolic value in the Asia-Pacific region (“wide” in terms of form and content) is made necessary and complex by the intervention of key global organizations such as UNESCO, the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM), the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), the International Council of Museums (ICOM), and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Recent intervention in addressing the cultural complexity of heritage is the introduction of informal education of intangible cultural heritage. This kind of education, in its simplest form, provides a basic training that has the potential to put intangible cultural heritage to the mainstream public sphere. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Indonesia initiated this kind of project called Indonesian Arts and Culture Scholarship (IACS) in 2003, focusing on traditional dance and music.\n\nIACS was originally intended for Member States of the South West Pacific Dialogue such as Australia, Indonesia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, and Timor-Leste, but has over the years expanded to include Member States of ASEAN+3 and Pacific Islands Forum as well as European countries and the US. In the period of 2003 to 2016, IACS has been awarded to 718 alumni from 63 countries. By appropriating local performance cultures and branding them “traditional,” the program asserts sustainable cultural systems detached from Indonesia’s history of colonialism thereby affirming the importance of indigeneity of ethnic groups as the primary source of diversity and cultural identities in Indonesia.\n\nThe three-month program is offered largely to non-Indonesians whose main qualification is arguably “interest in Indonesian arts and culture.” When selected and grouped, they will be deployed to a participating Indonesian city where they will learn music and traditional performance by practice and immersion. The visibility of non-Indonesians “doing” Indonesian culture reinforces the idea of social inclusion in heritage learning. Considering how scholars of globalization view the world as a global village, the program poignantly paints cultural diplomacy as a viable method of exchange, communication, and, to some extent, multi-layered artistry. Another important element in the program is its laudable effort of moving away from the center or the capital (Jakarta). As the capital is perceived as the main economic zone, most cultural activities carried out there are charged as more valuable than others, inevitably putting other cultural practices in the periphery. Therefore, moving away from the center gives those “other cultural practices” and the communities surviving them the priceless tendency to be appreciated and recognized in wider terms. Art centers also play a crucial role in the program. As they carry the main obligation of deciding what and how IACS participants should learn, the program is implicitly building their capacity to devise an “informal curriculum” for effective learning. Finally, it should be noted that all the participants of IACS are tourists; even when Indonesian citizens are selected as participants, they will still be sent to a city almost always different to them. For effective safeguarding of cultural heritage, Logan and Wijesuriya (2016) fittingly remind, the focus is not “knowledge transfer” to heritage practitioners but “knowledge acquisition” by a wide range of audiences. As the program clearly reflects this proposition, the idea of tourism as a strategic employment of informal heritage education can be organized into an actual and sustainable project in such a way that certain observable outcomes can be achieved.\n\nThis year, citizens of forty-five countries were selected for IACS. And with the expertise of and training from art centers and one university namely Rumata Artspace (Makassar, South Sulawesi), Sanggar Sofiyani (Padang, West Sumatera), Sanggar Semarandana (Denpasar, Bali), Studio Tydif (Surabaya, East Java), and Universitas Pembangunan Nasional “Veteran” (Yogyakarta, East Java), the selected participants gathered together and performed in a big event called Indonesia Channel 2017 on 18 August 2017 at the Empire Palace Building in Surabaya.\n\nReference\nLogan, William, and Gamini Wijesuriya. ‘The New Heritage Studies and Education, Training, and Capacity‐Building’. In A Companion to Heritage Studies, 557-573. William Logan, Máiréad Nic Craith, and Ullrich Kockel, 1st ed. Sussex: Wiley Blackwell, 2016.\n\n*The author thanks Fiska Dali Putri for her time and generosity as a resource.\n\nB.B.P. Hosmillo, 2017 ICHCAP Associate Expert Program Participant (Founder & Co-Editor, Queer Southeast Asia: a literary journal of transgressive art, the Philippines)\n\nPhoto : IACS participants deployed in Makassar © Pepeng SofyanYear2017NationIndonesia
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Kreta Ayer Heritage Gallery: Singapore’s First ICH Community GalleryNestled in the cultural heartland of Singapore’s Chinatown, the Kreta Ayer Heritage Gallery is Singapore’s first community gallery that showcases different aspects of the intangible cultural heritage (ICH) of the Chinese community as well as ICH elements practiced by the arts and cultural groups located in Kreta Ayer.\n\nCovering a gallery space of 1,076 square feet (100 square meters), the Kreta Ayer Heritage Gallery was co-curated by the National Heritage Board in partnership with the Kreta Ayer Community Centre and officially launched on 14 July 2019. The gallery features a total of 123 artifacts, of which 68 are on loan from the community and/or arts and cultural groups operating in Chinatown.\n\nThe gallery is made up of five sections covering five ICH elements comprising Chinese opera, Chinese puppetry, Nanyin music, Chinese calligraphy, and tea appreciation. It introduces visitors to the history of the precinct and showcases the aforementioned ICH elements while tracing their evolution from the days of old Chinatown to contemporary times.\n\nThe first section on Chinese opera traces its popularity as a form of local live entertainment between the late 1800s and the 1930s and showcases the different elements of the form including costumes, music, and characters. It also covers opera houses that used to operate in Chinatown and the characteristics of different types of opera according to dialects.\n\nThe second section on Chinese puppetry explores the roots of the art form and focuses on the common types of puppetry practiced in Singapore, including hokkien glove puppetry, teochew iron-stick puppetry, hainanese rod puppetry, and henghua string puppetry. The section also features a mock-up stage where puppetry performances are given, and visitors can try their hand at operating stringed puppets.\n\nThe third section on nanyin music, meaning “music of the south,” traces the origins of the art form and features nanyin performances, instruments, and musical scores on loan from Siong Leng Musical Association. It also showcases different genres of nanyin music such as Fujian nanyin and Cantonese naam-yam.\n\nThe fourth section on Chinese calligraphy focuses on the roots of Chinese calligraphy and the Chinese calligraphy scene in Singapore. It also features the first generation of calligraphers in Singapore and explores how the cultural art form is still practiced in schools, community centers, and cultural institutions today.\n\nThe final section on tea appreciation explores the long history of Chinese tea, the establishment of tea houses and the act of brewing and drinking tea as a cultural art form. It also looks at the different types of Chinese tea and how they are typically paired with different types of cuisine.\n\nThe gallery also features interactive components that allows visitors to experience the different ICH elements on show. These components include a puppetry stage where visitors can test their skills as puppeteers, multimedia stations that allow visitors to experience playing nanyin instruments, and a Chinese calligraphy station that allows visitors to practice their calligraphy using “invisible ink.”\n\nFollowing its official opening, NHB and Kreta Ayer Community Centre is partnering with various arts and cultural groups in Chinatown to present regular programs, including Chinese opera, Chinese puppetry, and Nanyin music performances and workshops as well as calligraphy and tea appreciation classes for students and members of the public to promote greater awareness of these ICH elements and, where possible, facilitate the transmission of skills.\n\nWith the opening of the Kreta Ayer Heritage Gallery, NHB hopes to showcase the richness and diversity of the Chinese community’s “living” ICH, provide a platform for ICH practitioners and groups to showcase their skills, and create more opportunities to collaborate with community partners to showcase the heritage of specific precincts or estates as well as the history and heritage of different ethnic communities.\n\nPhoto : An interior shot of the new Kreta Ayer Heritage Gallery ⓒ National Heritage Board, SingaporeYear2019NationSingapore
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AWARENESS CAMPAIGN ON THE IMPORTANCE OF ICH IN JORDANThe Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan acknowledges the importance of cultural issues at both the governmental as well as the non-governmental levels, as it promotes the significance of culture for sustainable development and cultural dialogue. Included in this concept is cultural heritage, which shapes the basic elements of identity and social cohesion among communities and minorities of the country. In our assessment report about ICH in Jordan, we were able to trace administrative strengths and weaknesses embraced in this field. For example, subjects included the government’s developed interest on ICH issues, the existence of certain Jordanian institutions, organizations that contributed in various and divergent ways to this field, and the potential and adaptability of the Jordanian laws and legislation to deal with culture related matters. Based on the information collected, it became evident that there were considerable weaknesses in integrating cultural heritage issues into the strategic planning of the nation. Additionally, disseminating the importance of ICH and its great value among Jordanians on governmental, institutional, and public levels was not carried out satisfactorily, resulting in a lack of awareness programs. If awareness efforts were carried out, this would have enabled the people to explore the value of their ICH and allowed them to become aware of its importance as reflected in the cultural diversity of the Jordanian society.Year2011NationSouth Korea
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Traditional Iconic Mats of Fiji The Vakaurua MatThe pandanus is used throughout the Pacific as a source of leaves from which mats and a number of other artefacts are made. Several species of pandanus are or have been used in different places. In Fiji, the balawa (P. odoratissumus) is sometimes used for large coarse mats but not used very frequently. The draudreka (P. whitmeeanus) is also used. The leaves of this species may yield a browner fibre that the usual voivoi (P.caricosus).\n\nIn most villages in Fiji, voivoi is the only species cultivated. Each village has an area where voivoi is planted and cultivated. Although most of the vegetable crops and yaqona (Piper methysticum) are grown in the hills at a distance from the villages, in the case of voivoi, the garden is right near the village. The reason does not seem to be merely convenience of harvesting as it is easier to transport a bundle of voivoi leaves than a basket or sack of yams. It relates to the lighter and sandier soil which exists on the coast where the villages are situated and which is said to suit voivoi, and the fact that while it doesn’t like wet roots, it does like a lot of water. Throughout Fiji there is a diversity of traditionally made mats that are iconic to a chiefdom, a chief and its geography. These traditional mats are seen as traditional gifts or heirlooms only for a chief and are of much value in trade and in social activities. Generically mats are called ibe in Fiji and the measurements vary from baby mats to living room sized ones. With the different sizes also comes specific names.\n\nThere are also many motifs woven into mats. These motifs are woven from black voivoi. This is the usual voivoi that is dyed using traditional means. Along with the motifs, the name of the mat changes where the motif becomes a suffix to describe the ibe (mat). One such iconic mat is called the ibe vakaurua.\nThe word vakaurua is made from two words – vakau which means to send, and rua meaning two. The ibe vakaurua is only iconic to an island in Fiji’s Lomaiviti Province. The island is called Nairai. Unlike other mats in Fiji, the pandanus for the ibe vakaurua is double layered and woven in such a way that there is no underside. All other mats have an upper side for sitting and an underside that faces the floor.\n\nThe story behind the design and creation of the ibe vakaurua is a testament of a mother’s love for her two young sons. The story goes that long ago, a delegation from Nairai Island approached the warlords of the domain to ask for a prince there to become the chief of Nairai. The warlord chief agreed and chose his elder son Bukatatano to be groomed and become the chief of Nairai. The warlord’s second and younger son, Ravuravu asked also to accompany his elder brother and it was agreed.\n\nBecause the warlord had uttered a traditional directive, it was to be followed by his people. The mother of the two princes could not go against the traditional directive and complied but with a very heavy heart that only a mother knows when parting with her children. The affection of the mother was channeled into the design and creation of the ibe vakaurua. The name of the mat forever memorialized her affection and the send of her two young princes to return with the delegation from Nairai Island.\n\nToday, the women of Nairai Island do not weave the ibe vakaurua anyhow. It is not used domestically on the island. Only when there is a commissioning or traditional state event at the original home of the princes do the women weave the ibe vakaurua as their gift back and as a traditional reminder of the old relationship between the two chiefdoms.\n\nPicture 1: Ibe vakaurua that woven for one person, the chief, to sit on © iTaukei Institute of Language & Culture\nPicture 2: Three newly woven ibe vakaurau showing its traditional red and black decoration along the edges © iTaukei Institute of Language & CultureYear2022NationFiji
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THE GUAM MUSEUM: HERITAGE AND CULTURE THROUGH EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMMINGInside the Guam Museum’s multipurpose room, Chamorro oral historian Toni “Malia” Ramirez sits on a carpet of autumn tones along with a small group of young children. On the floor beside him are a world globe, a sprouting coconut plant, and a tray of local foods as diverse as the multicultural children seated—lumpia from the Philippines, Japanese-style omusubi, Korean kimchee, and Chamorro titiyas. On the back wall, a wire grid is covered with an assortment of t-shirts hung with plastic hangers. The t-shirts have phrases in Chamorro, the indigenous language of the Mariana Islands. In the tradition of Chamorro storytellers, Ramirez converses with the children, sharing memories he had collected over the years from Guam’s war survivors and their stories of life during the Japanese Occupation and Liberation in July 1944. The t-shirts, he explains, express cultural values that helped the Chamorros survive the atrocities of the war, values that are important even today. The t-shirt he wears is decorated with “Tåutau latti’ yu’, Guåhan, Islas Marianas,” asserting his pride as a “person of the latte,” and a native of Guam. With a song, the tray of food soon represents the cultural diversity of Guam home. As the session ends, the children and their parents wave Guam flags and sing “Fanoghe Chamorro,” the island’s territorial anthem. Ramirez has shared with the event’s participants important historical memories of Guam’s people, Chamorro cultural values, and lessons for good citizenship in a little more than an hour.Year2020NationSouth Korea
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Enrich, Include, and Empower: Living HeritageEnrichment, inclusion and empowerment. Why these concepts and why in that order? Are they, next to “sustainable development” of course, the key concepts for the 2020s in heritage policy and practice? Do these concepts already appear in the universe of the Blue Book, the nickname of the Basic Texts of the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage 2018 Edition? This set of texts includes among others the 2003 UNESCO Convention text itself, the most recent version of the Operational Directives (ODs) approved by the General Assembly, the 12 Ethical Principles and the new Overall Results (Based) Framework/ORF (2018).1)\nThe word “empowerment” cannot yet be found but the verb “empower” is used twice: OD130 and OD133. Two times to empower the Director General of UNESCO so she can authorize the use of the emblem of the 2003 Convention. \nThe word “enrichment” cannot yet be found but the verb “enrich” is used twice: in the preamble of the 2003 UNESCO Convention. First in the statement that communities, groups and, in some cases, individuals (CGIs), play an important role in (safeguarding) intangible cultural heritage “thus helping to enrich cultural diversity and human creativity”. Then in a statement that international agreements concerning heritage “need to be effectively enriched and supplemented by means of new provisions relating to the intangible cultural heritage.”\nThe word “inclusion” is used twice. Once in the Rule of Procedure (22.4) in a warning/request to delegates of State Parties or observers not to advocate for granting financial assistance or the inclusion onYear2019NationSouth Korea