Cultural heritage expo to be held in Jinan

The Fourth China Intangible Cultural Heritage Expo will be held in Jinan, East China's Shandong province, from Sept 21 to 25. The theme for the upcoming fair, held every two years since 2010, is to translate cultural heritage into a modern context so that people of today can still live with these items and traditions.

The expo will showcase cultural heritage in various forms from 31 provinces and autonomous regions, as well as from countries, including Britain, Japan, Thailand and Nepal.

As usual there will be booths selling folk and creativity products. But this year, the area will not be as big as it was, according to Ma Shengde who is in charge of the intangible cultural heritage department under the Ministry of Culture, one of the expo's organizers.

He said at a news release on Monday in Beijing that a bulk area will be devoted to displaying quality works of State-level inheritors of cultural heritage from across the country and also, there will be an experience area for the visitors.

The expo will for the first time organize competitions where folk artist show their skills of paper cutting, embroidery and traditional performing arts. A special venue will display recreations of aged-old craft such as lacquer making and bamboo carving.

Since last year, the cultural and education ministries have jointly launched a program to train artists of intangible cultural heritage. Researchers from 57 colleges and universities have helped train some 4,700 folk artists. Ma says the expo will also show new products of these artists.

A forum will also be held to discuss about the future of cultural heritage. Ma said this year many designers will attend and share cases how they have worked with folk artists to breath new life to their customs.

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