Reevaluating authenticity: Creativity in contemporary craft making in China

Craft China is a research project conducted in partnership between the Institute of Archaeology at UCL and the Chinese National Museum of Ethnology (CNME) that explores the remaking of traditional crafts and ethnic heritage in China's creative economy. Since around 2015, within a wider growth of the ‘cultural creative' industries, crafts have been encouraged to adapt and evolve so that they can find a new customer base. Operating under the mantra of ‘sell to save', craft has been remaking itself through allying with creative practices such as design, fashion and contemporary art, in the country's newfound zeal of cultural innovation, as well as the ambivalences of commodification, gentrification and the vibrant copycat culture of shanzhai. These shifts have entailed new perspectives of understanding the dynamics between creativity and authenticity in the context of heritage. In this talk, we engage two cases, the Rong Design Library, a community project for arts and design in rural Hangzhou and Soft Mountains, a Nuosu ethnic craft-inspired contemporary jewelry brand based in Shanghai. By examining their own approaches to interpreting and transmitting authenticity, we consider the transformation of heritage value in the age of the creative economy.