Wu Wanjing is the director of Jiangxi Xinyu Xiabu Embroidery Art Research Institute, the representative inheritor of folk embroidery (Xiabu Embroidery), a representative project of national intangible cultural heritage, and the national March 8th Red Flag bearer in 2023. With her love for traditional culture and a sense of responsibility for the inheritance of intangible cultural heritage, she has been working hard for decades to inherit and disseminate the techniques of summer cloth embroidery. "I think Xia Bu Embroidery is not only a traditional craft, but also a cultural inheritance and expression. I hope that through my own efforts, more people can understand and appreciate Xia Bu Embroidery, and also contribute to the inheritance and development of intangible cultural heritage."
Summer cloth is made from natural ramie fiber by hand through multiple processes. Because it is cool and breathable, it is often used as summer clothing material, so it is often called summer cloth by ancestors. Xinyu City, Jiangxi Province has a long history of planting ramie and weaving summer cloth. The traditional summer cloth embroidery, which was bred and grown in Xinyu, takes summer cloth as the embroidery ground and is unique to Jiangxi Province. In 2014, the folk embroidery (summer embroidery) declared by Xinyu City, Jiangxi Province, was included in the fourth batch of national intangible cultural heritage representative project list expansion project list. Zhang Xiaohong, the representative inheritor, has studied embroidery with her ancestors since childhood, and has devoted herself to studying embroidery skills and painting principles for many years. With "hemp as paper, needle as pen, and thread as ink", she has constantly improved the quality of embroidery and innovated embroidery needle techniques, and sublimated the millennial folk "linen embroidery" to a unique style of summer cloth art embroidery, It has become a representative embroidery species in Jiangxi. Among Zhang Xiaohong's team, the most special "Xiuniang" is her daughter-in-law Wu Wanjing.
Dream building: just want to do something for summer cloth embroidery
Wu Wanjing, who was born in 1987, liked painting since childhood and was determined to enter art colleges for further study. In 2009, after graduating from the Department of Art History of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, she returned to her hometown to work in a bank, but she never let go of her dream and hoped to continue to work related to art until she met, knew and fell in love with her husband. "My husband, who took me out occasionally to participate in exhibitions and competitions at the beginning, is the main reason why I became attached to Xia Bu Embroidery. Later, under his intentional and unintentional influence, I became more and more fond of Xia Bu Embroidery." After becoming a family, Zhang Xiaohong, her mother-in-law, devoted all her unreserved love to Xia Bu Embroidery, and practiced the concept of "doing one thing well in life" with practical actions, It deeply touched Wu Wanjing. "My mother-in-law turned the dream of inheriting Xia Bu embroidery into a career, and set up a stage for people with dreams and enthusiasm for Xia Bu embroidery. This kind of influence filled me with admiration and longing for the inheritance of Xia Bu embroidery. I went to the countryside with her to purchase embroidery products, and supported her in preparing for the establishment of Xia Bu embroidery museum. I think my professional ability should also be able to empower this industry, so I decided to devote myself wholeheartedly to it. In addition, my love for traditional culture and my sense of responsibility for the inheritance of intangible cultural heritage have gradually deepened, and it has become my happiest choice to pursue the development of summer cloth embroidery without hesitation. "
It takes not only great courage, but also confidence and love to give up a stable job and invest in a job with developmental uncertainty. At the beginning, Wu Wanjing studied summer cloth embroidery after work and helped manage the affairs of the embroidery workshop. However, it is inevitable that there will be times when both sides can't work together. In order to devote herself to the protection and inheritance of summer cloth embroidery, in 2014, Wu Wanjing overcame the pressure and persuaded her family to quit her bank job and concentrate on the summer cloth embroidery business.
In order to better stick to the "dream of inheritance", Wu Wanjing practiced "needle" kungfu. Under the careful guidance of Zhang Xiaohong, she has mastered the techniques of Xiabu Embroidery. With the deeper understanding of Xiabu Embroidery, her sense of responsibility and mission for inheritance has become stronger and stronger. Wu Wanjing often goes to art schools and senior Xia Bu embroidery masters to learn and consult, and combines his own art cultivation and painting principle research to constantly improve Xia Bu embroidery skills, while trying to explore how to better integrate intangible heritage inheritance into modern life, and constantly explore the possibility of cross-border integration and development. "Xia Cloth Embroidery is the carrier of the integration of Xia Cloth Art and Embroidery Art, as well as the traditional craft inherited from generation to generation. It contains the cultural values, ideological wisdom and practical experience of the Chinese nation, and is the art of dancing on Xia Cloth. Traditional Xia Bu Embroidery works of art are mostly in the form of flowers and birds, landscapes and other traditional Chinese paintings as the main theme, presented in the form of viewing, and displayed or collected as space. In order to show the beauty of traditional crafts in today's life, and find more possibilities for the integration of intangible heritage inheritance and the times, as a inheritor of intangible heritage of summer cloth embroidery, I have been exploring and trying to make some practical products of summer cloth embroidery that can be closer to life, and looking for bridges and carriers for cross-border integration of traditional crafts and other crafts. "
Small Days furniture series is one of Wu Wanjing's representative works, which is an innovative result of the integration of summer cloth embroidery, furniture and lighting design. The theme is borrowed from the original painting of the painter Pu Sheng, and the embroidery process mainly uses the representative stitch of the summer cloth embroidery - transparent virtual and solid stitch, which makes the beautiful stitch and the natural texture of the summer cloth naturally blend. "The overall design and display of this set of works is the picture of life I yearn for, a floor lamp, a comfortable chair, accompanied by people or things I like, enjoying my favorite music, reading my favorite books, and sighing about my happy little days..."
"Xia Yu Xin Cheng" Tote bag series is a representative design of traditional craft entering modern life. The theme of the work selects the cultural elements representing Jiangxi, such as Xinyu Fairy Lake, Jinggang Chaohui, Jinggang Azalea, and so on. It uses the needle by needle of the fingertips to turn into soft words, writes the story of Jiangxi, a hot land, on the hand-made summer cloth, and presents the story perfectly through the fashionable and practical handbag form as the carrier. In April this year, Wu Wanjing attended the China International Consumer Goods Expo again with the popular fashion products of summer cloth embroidery, which attracted wide attention.
Pursuing dreams: being a good female "performer"
Wu Wanjing has had his own views and thoughts on the development of the cause after decades of hard work in the protection and inheritance of summer cloth embroidery. "As a traditional handicraft, Xia Bu Embroidery does face some difficulties in the process of inheritance and development, such as the difficulty of skill inheritance. It is a challenge to find suitable inheritors and ensure that they can comprehensively and deeply master this skill; At the same time, it also faces the challenges of market demand and modernization, such as how to innovate on the basis of maintaining the traditional characteristics of summer cloth embroidery to attract more consumers; In the process of "intangible cultural heritage+industrialization" of summer cloth embroidery, there will also be problems in capital, management, marketing and other aspects. "
To this end, Wu Wanjing led the team to do a lot of innovative and pioneering work: develop and design more than 500 kinds of practical summer cloth embroidery cultural and creative products, such as summer cloth embroidery bags, furniture, household goods, etc., so that the old skills radiate new vitality; Try to carry out online promotion activities such as summer cloth embroidery teaching in the way of live broadcast. Through communication with the audience and live broadcast big data analysis, research and develop products that better meet the needs of online promotion and mass life, and use the Internet and new media to give summer cloth embroidery more market influence and artistic vitality; Through the integration of "intangible cultural heritage+tourism, education, science and technology and other industries", promote the inheritance and development of intangible cultural heritage, create more products and services with regional characteristics and cultural connotation, and inject new impetus into local economic development. Wu Wanjing said, "On the one hand, it enables tourists to have a deeper understanding of Xia Bu Embroidery and enhance tourists' cultural experience and tourism satisfaction. On the other hand, it also develops intangible cultural heritage products as tourism resources to promote the development of local tourism. For example, since the opening of Xia Bu Embroidery Museum in 2014, the museum has received an average of 30000 visitors every year; In 2023, we signed a strategic cooperation agreement on cultural and tourism integration with Xinyu Wanghong Scenic Spot to carry out research and practice activities for primary and secondary students in the scenic spot, which not only plays a role in generating income from consumption, but also enhances students' understanding and love of traditional culture. "
Over the years, in order to cultivate and accumulate talents, they have established a training system covering all ages, set up off campus practice bases in Nanchang University, Jiangxi Normal University and other colleges and universities in the Chabu Embroidery Museum, and jointly built a "Zhang Xiaohong Skill Master Studio" with Jiangxi Tourism and Business College to carry out monthly skill training. "We use modern scientific and technological means, such as digitalization and virtual reality, to protect and inherit the intangible cultural heritage, explore the integration of 'intangible cultural heritage+science and technology', establish a database of Jiangxi folk embroidery and summer cloth embroidery art of all previous dynasties, and form a database system for identifying the image of summer cloth embroidery; Continuously explore the combination of summer cloth embroidery with digital products and digital media, and continue to explore new growth points in IP, diversification, digitalization, internationalization and other aspects... "Wu Wanjing talks about the inheritance and development of summer cloth embroidery. Over the years, thanks to her and her team's efforts, Xia Bu Embroidery has become more and more famous and influential.
Realizing the Dream: Telling the Story of Intangible Cultural Heritage Inheritance
In 2018, in order to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Karl Marx's birth, the "Meet China - Commemorating the 200th Anniversary of Marx's Birth Series of Chinese Cultural Exhibitions" co sponsored by the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, the General Administration of Cultural Heritage Protection and Research of Rhineland Pfalz and the German China Friendship Association Federation opened in Trier, Germany, on June 1, As one of the local cultural products of Jiangxi theme exhibition, Xia Bu Embroidery made its debut in Germany. The Xia Bu Embroidery Portrait of Marx created by Zhang Xiaohong, Zhang Suling and Wu Wanjing held a donation ceremony on the day of the opening ceremony. "In order to tell Chinese stories and build a cultural bridge between the two countries in the distinctive language of Xia Bu Embroidery, we have carefully prepared more than 20 Xia Bu Embroidery works of art and derivatives, and also spent six months to create a Xia Bu Embroidery Portrait of Marx, which has been permanently collected by the Trier City Museum," said Wu Wanjing, It never occurred to them that Xia Bu Embroidery could one day enter foreign museums, which was their great pride. "In the past decades of my career, my original intention has always been to promote and pass on Xia Bu Embroidery. This is not only my dream, but also the common dream of all people who care about Xia Bu Embroidery. I am just one of them. I hope that through our joint efforts, more people can understand Xia Bu Embroidery, get close to Xia Bu Embroidery, and love Xia Bu Embroidery."
As the representative of the Thirteenth National Congress of Chinese Women, Wu Wanjing focuses on giving play to her own strengths and doing practical things for women and sisters. In the practical work of inheriting the intangible cultural heritage of Xiabu Embroidery, she actively played the role of Jiangxi Provincial Women's Science and Technology Demonstration Base and Jiangxi Provincial March 8th Red Bannerman Studio, serving the construction of the "Two Outlines" Demonstration Area in Yushui District, Xinyu City; We will strengthen cooperation between schools and enterprises, cultivate new forces for inheriting intangible cultural heritage in the new era, and build a platform for career guidance and service for female college students. "We introduced 'HR application management technology' to stimulate the development of talents in the industry, and help Chinese arts and crafts masters, representative inheritors of intangible cultural heritage and professional title evaluation. Its innovation mode and practical achievements won the national championship in the second China Women's Handicraft Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition; We helped industry talents to assess the representative inheritors and professional titles of intangible cultural heritage, and cultivated 7 national, provincial and municipal inheritors and industrial and artistic masters, and 20 craft artists. " Wu Wanjing said.
It is worth mentioning that Wu Wanjing combines the promotion and inheritance of Xia Cloth Embroidery with entrepreneurship employment training and inheritance talent training, actively integrates into rural revitalization, deeply promotes the activity of "sending skills to communities and towns", and encourages and helps women with special difficulties to innovate and start businesses, increase income and wealth, and pursue a better life through "one-on-one" skill teaching. "We have cooperated with women's federations at all levels and disabled persons' federations to build entrepreneurship and employment training bases, carry out skills training and employment assistance, etc., and opened up a new situation for unemployed women and disabled people to achieve income generation and self value through crafts. Over the years, more than 30000 people have received free training, which has driven more than 2000 local people to find jobs and start businesses." Wu Wanjing said, Next, we will continue to strengthen cooperation with women's federations, actively explore flexible employment "mom posts", and help more women and sisters realize their dreams.
Wu Wanjing and her mother-in-law Zhang Xiaohong are both national March 8th Red Flag bearers. As inheritors of the intangible cultural heritage of summer cloth embroidery, they both have a firm determination and sense of mission to inherit and carry forward summer cloth embroidery. "My mother-in-law treats me as if I were her own. Although the ideas of the two generations will inevitably be different in the process of inheritance and innovation of Xia Bu embroidery, my mother-in-law gives me more support than reminding me. In my heart, my mother-in-law is an example of" being around ", which is also the power of this example and has infected me bit by bit - taking the inheritance of Xia Bu embroidery as the mission , take the development of summer cloth embroidery as a dream, take honor as a responsibility, and make a down-to-earth progress on the road of determined inheritance. " Wu Wanjing said.
By Yao Yao
Photographer: Ma Yan, Gu Qinqing, Li Chengsheng
