Taishun Kucun “Hand in Hand” Wenzhou-Kean University Students: Mechanical Puppet Interpretation of Intangible Cultural Heritage Creativity
Recently, Wenzhou-Kean University Library Fang Jiong Art Space in conjunction with Taishun Nanpu Xi Township Government，Wenzhou-Kean University College of Architecture and Design organized the “Intangible Cultural Heritage: Taishun Kucun Puppet Installation Design Exhibition”. At the exhibition, 12 groups of mechanical puppet installation works from the sophomore students of the College of Architecture and Design of WKU appeared one by one, bringing everyone into a creative dialog between tradition and machinery.
Wang Shanshan, Party Secretary of Wenzhou Taishun Nanpu Xi Township, Liu Sufen, Vice Mayor of the Township, Dr. Xie Zhiwu, Assistant Vice President for Academic Affairs, Interim Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Director of the Library of Wenzhou- Kean University, Wang Qinshuo, Senior Coordinator of the College of Architecture and Design, and Ren Yuanyuan, Senior Coordinator of the Library, were present at the opening ceremony of this exhibition. At the opening ceremony, Vice Mayor Liu Sufen donated two books, “Memory of Time: Oral History of Kucun” and “Women's Figures - Kucun in the Long River of History”, to Wenzhou-Kean University Library, so as to encourage teachers and students to actively learn about the Intangible Cultural Heritage as well as the history of Kucun in Taishun, Wenzhou.
As the title of the exhibition suggests, this exhibition is inspired by Kucun, a thousand-year-old village in Nanpu Xi Township, Taishun. In June 2024, Wang Qinshuo, Senior Coordinator of Wenzhou-Kean University, College of Architecture and Design, was engaged in a cultural pairing with Kucun, and as a municipal cultural commissioner, she began to penetrate into Kucun, and contacted a number of Wenzhou-Kean University internationalized and characteristic resources to enter Kucun, to excavate the local culture, and to design and develop the relevant image brand of culture and tourism. This exhibition, also thanks to her leading and coordination.
This exhibition is also the final results exhibition of the Product Design Studio course, a school-local cooperation project between Wenzhou-Kean University, College of Architecture and Design and Nanpu Xi Township. According to the studio's instructor, Zhou Yinxuan, he led his students to Kucun twice and found that this ancient village has a very deep cultural heritage, while still retaining numerous Intangible Cultural Heritage items. Therefore, he planned this mechanical puppet installation course with Kucun and even the surrounding Taishun ancient villages' Intangible Cultural Heritage as the background, and Taishun's ancient puppet theater as the main creative element, which was finally presented in the form of a puppet machine.
After a field trip to Kucun, the students worked for about two months to produce a number of highly creative puppet machine installations.
Li Yuwei and Wu Changyi, designed and built a puppet machine related to Taishun bamboo weaving. “We visited Mr.Xia Lijiang in Kucun. He kindly showed us how to process a piece of bamboo into a thin bamboo strip for making bamboo weaving. We were very interested in this traditional skill and wanted to make more people aware of this craft.” Li Yuwei said that their puppet machine expresses the complicated process of making thin bamboo strip with witty and light-hearted puppet figurines and the dynamics of thin bamboo strip.
Wang Ruyi and Gan Tian, on the other hand, created a puppet machine installation based on the restoration of the Taishun Lounge Bridge. Previously, they interviewed an old man next to the Wenxing Bridge in Taishun who had participated in the restoration of the Lounge bridge. Eventually, they converted the old man into a character IP and incorporated the elements of the ox-head beam of the Lounge bridge. Through the mortise and tenon structure splicing, the characters are stabilized and linked to simulate the hammering action of the old craftsman repairing the bridge.
Hu Zhichen and Mo Lantian, in the course of visiting Kucun, realized that the Shes culture has a profound accumulation in Kucun. So, they took the phoenix as their inspiration and used bamboo weaving as their pen to create a unique puppet machine device. The wheel turns lightly, driving the phoenix's wings to flap, and the image of the phoenix flying in the wind is thus realized in a traditional mechanical movement. “After the design was completed, we named the puppet machine device Shes Ling Yin. Shes is the ethnic name, the Ling represents the phoenix tail feathers, the Yin implies the linkage of the mechanical device to pull, and we hope that the phoenix on the puppet machine can fly higher and farther with the hope and vision of the Kucun and the She people.” Hu Zhichen said.
After visiting the exhibition, Wang Shanshan, Party Secretary of Taishun Nanpu Xi Township, was deeply impressed by the creative designs of the students, and she also hoped that the exhibition could continue to be optimized and more places could undertake this exhibition, so that the culmination of Taishun's traditional culture and the fashionable creativity of the students could be seen by more people.
About Fang Jiong Art Space
Wenzhou-Kean University Fang Jiong Art Space located on the 6h floor of the Student Learning and Activity Center (Library). The Fang Jiong Art Space at Wenzou-Kean University is more than an exhibition place, but also a cultural exchange platform. It is committed to organizing special collections, cultural and artistic exhibitions, for teachers and students and all walks of life to bring a feast for the vision and mind. So far, it has held exhibitions such as “Inheritance and Resonance--Fang Jiong Calligraphy and Painting Collection Exhibition” and “Du Qiurui--The Adventure of Love”.
