China · Printing; Typography; Hong Kong heritage
活字印刷技藝
Printing from cast lead-alloy Chinese type: the compositor picks individual characters from type cases, sets them on a rack, locks the forme and prints on a hand-fed or automatic platen press. The craft's four core steps are picking, printing, cutting and binding. It arrived in Hong Kong in the mid-19th century and was the main print medium until offset and digital printing replaced it.
Risk level: Critically Endangered · Not listed by UNESCO. Included in the Hong Kong ICH Inventory in 2014 (per the Hong Kong Original Print research report); one of the topics funded by the ICH Funding Scheme.
Huzhou writing brushes (湖笔) are China's pre-eminent calligraphy and painting brushes — one of the Four Treasures of the Scholar's Studio alongside ink (CRAFT-0349), inkstone, and paper — produced in Shanwuli Town, Huzhou, Zhejiang for over…
The Fuchuan (福船) is the traditional ocean-going wooden vessel of Fujian province — the primary ship type of China's Maritime Silk Road trade for over a millennium, and the vessel type used by Zheng He's fleet in the 15th century.
The Hangzhou silk umbrella (西湖绸伞) is a refined decorative and functional parasol combining split-bamboo rib engineering with hand-painted silk canopy — produced in Hangzhou since the 1930s as a cultural emblem of the West Lake aesthetic.
The hand carving and painting of mahjong tiles.
The hand making of round bamboo steamer baskets for Cantonese cooking, from splitting Luo bamboo into flat strips to weaving the base and lid.
The hand painting of white porcelain with overglaze enamels and gold, fired a second time at low temperature in a kiln.
A contemporary practice transforming Arabic calligraphy into monumental architectural and sculptural form, developed by Emirati painter, calligrapher, photographer, sculptor, and designer Mattar Bin Lahej, whose work has become an integral…
The Frankfurt bookbinding tradition — specifically the historical binding structures (Coptic bindings, medieval Romanesque bindings, early printed book bindings) maintained as a heritage craft in the context of the Frankfurt Buchmesse…
The conservation of Gutenberg Bibles and other early printed books (incunabula) at the Gutenberg Museum Mainz — the world center for the documentation and conservation of Johann Gutenberg's moveable type printing tradition.
The construction of ritual paper effigies and paper sculptures over lightweight bamboo or wire frameworks for Chinese funerals, temples, ancestor observances, and traditional festivals in Penang.
A contemporary studio practice by Karine, working as La Dentellière de Carton near Mougins on the French Riviera.
A contemporary German studio practice associated with Lydia Hirte in Dresden, in which cardboard is cut and drawn into sculptural wearable forms through tension, bending and the material's resistance.