In recent years, Dehua’s ceramic products have frequently appeared in major events and major events. For example, at the 2017 BRICS leaders’ meeting in Xiamen, 15 of the 16 national gifts were “made by virtue”; the mascots of this year’s Winter Olympics and Paralympics – ceramic versions of “Bingdundun” and “Xuerongrong”, and the highest The official gifts “Winter Olympics Wenjun Bottle” and “Winter Paralympics Wenjun Bottle” are both made by Dehua.
Ceramic companies rush to produce “Xue Rongrong” (Photo by Chen Xiaoyang)
Why is Dehua Ceramics frequently out of the circle? This is due to the transformation of the county around the ceramic industry over the years, and it has been constantly making up for shortcomings and casting chains. In recent years, Dehua County has established a ceramic development committee through a five-year action plan for leap-forward development to promote the rapid expansion of the ceramic industry, becoming the country’s largest ceramic e-commerce base, ceramic tea set and flower pot production base, as well as the country’s largest production and export of ceramic handicrafts. The base, the evaluation value of ceramic brands reaches 108.6 billion yuan, ranking first in the national ceramic production area. In 2021, the output value of ceramics will exceed 45 billion yuan.
Open up new paths for non-genetic inheritance
Dehua, which has the honorary title of “Ceramic Capital of the World”, has kept the kiln fire for thousands of years. As early as 2006, the firing technique of Dehua porcelain was approved by the State Council to be included in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage list; on July 25 last year, the Dehua kiln site was designated as “Quanzhou: The World Maritime Trade Center of China in Song and Yuan Dynasties” One of the heritage sites, it was included in the “World Heritage List” and became the first world cultural heritage of porcelain kilns.
Hand-painted ceramics, full of charm. (Photo by Chen Xiaoyang)
In the Dehua Taifeng Ceramic Art Museum, the intangible cultural heritage training center, there is a jade-like Guanyin porcelain sculpture, which is delicate, white, cordial and quiet, attracting many tourists to stop and watch. As the sixth-generation successor of Dehua Porcelain Xu’s Porcelain Sculpture, Xu Ruifeng, the artistic director of Taifeng Porcelain Workshop, was awarded the representative inheritor of the national intangible cultural heritage (Dehua Porcelain Firing Technique) in 2018. He said: ” The inheritance and protection of intangible cultural heritage, especially the inheritance of traditional skills, is of great significance.” Since its establishment in 2020, the Institute has promoted inheritance through “research and development, mentoring, communication, and tourism”. In other ways, salon lectures are held from time to time to explain the traditional porcelain sculptures of Dehua for ceramic practitioners in the county.
Ceramic enterprises carry out research on ceramic handwork (Photo by Lin Xiaolong)
Taifeng Porcelain Workshop is just one of them. The author learned from the Dehua County Cultural and Tourism Bureau that there are currently 19 non-genetic study institutes in the county, of which 4 new city-level non-genetic study institutes and 4 county-level non-genetic study institutes were added last year; a total of Dehua porcelain There are 3 intangible inheritors at the national level, 9 at the provincial level, 25 at the municipal level, and 118 at the county level, injecting new vitality into the protection and inheritance of intangible cultural heritage.
In addition, Dehua has made active explorations in cultivating non-genetic inheritance talents, cultivating cultural and creative brands, and exploring effective ways to revitalize traditional crafts in accordance with the work idea of ”point-to-face, point-to-face interaction, driving society, and cultivating ecology”. Promulgated “Several Preferential Policies for Supporting and Promoting Cultural Development in Dehua County”, and included the special funds for the protection of Dehua porcelain firing skills into the financial budget of the same level; actively built various intangible cultural heritage protection platforms, relying on the ceramic exhibition halls of intangible heritage inheritors , encourage the introduction of characteristic intangible cultural heritage experience projects such as intangible cultural heritage research practice courses and experience classes; broaden the channels for master and apprentices to pass on arts, and introduce methods such as “famous teachers lead apprentices” and “art masters lead apprentices to teach arts”, effectively giving full play to the morality of the older generation. The role of the inheritor of porcelain firing skills to pass, help, and lead.
Integrating culture and tourism to build a young business
Not long ago, the Ruci Cultural and Creative Industry Park, located in Shangliao Industrial Zone, Sanban Town, Dehua County, was completed and opened. The cultural and creative park is a scenic ceramic manufacturing factory integrating industrial tourism, cultural and creative services, creative incubation base for college students, and maker space. It can not only realize the organic integration of manufacturing and service industries, but also represent the business model of Dehua ceramics. trend of innovation.
“We operate and develop in the mode of crowd-creation, crowd-funding and crowd-sourcing. We mainly create a lifestyle with porcelain as the theme of cultural creation, and provide porcelain-related gift solutions and IP cross-border integration solutions.” Ruci Life Culture Co., Ltd. Xu Haiyan, general manager of the company, introduced that the upstream of the company has established long-term cooperative relations with 18 design units and more than 100 designers across the country, and the downstream has gathered the strengths of more than 20 entity enterprises to reorganize the industrial chain to create ceramic designers and manufacturers. A comprehensive communication platform with consumers, promoting the interactive development of crowd-creation space and crowd-funding platform, meeting the diversified market demands of product customization and mass production, and realizing the transformation of production mode and marketing mode.
Dehua International Ceramic Art City is a ceramic culture exhibition center
This is a microcosm of the innovation chain of Dehua ceramics industry’s extended industrial chain deployment. As the “Ceramic Capital of the World”, Dehua was awarded the “National Tourism Demonstration Zone” in 2020. Linking resources and integrating culture and tourism is the “finishing hand” to expand the industrial chain.
With the help of the “Golden Signboard” effect of the world cultural heritage, Dehua makes good use of the two city cards of “Ceramic Culture” and “Global Tourism” to fully promote the construction of Dehua Kiln National Archaeological Site Park. Cultural and creative implantation and other forms, carefully create boutique tourist routes with world cultural heritage as the main line, and build heritage sites into unique “National Archaeological Site Parks” and “Ceramic Cultural Tourism Integration Demonstration Bases” in China and even in the world, allowing more tourists to visit Feel the charm of Dehua ceramic culture from a distance. In addition, the county relies on projects such as International Ceramic Art City, China Tea Ware City, Xinxiuyuan Porcelain Art Village, and Private Science and Technology Park, etc., connecting Shunmei Ceramic Culture World, such as Porcelain Cultural and Creative Industry Park, Longpeng Art Museum, Yijia Art Museum, etc. The enterprise exhibition hall will revitalize the resources of master craft exhibition halls such as Taifeng Porcelain Workshop and Yunyu Porcelain Village, and create a number of tourist attractions of ceramic culture that integrate viewing and purchasing, ceramic display, and ceramic art experience, forming a “one city tour of 100 porcelain museums”. ”, taste the different gestures of white porcelain clay in the hands of different artists, so that more people can understand Dehua white porcelain in the experience and taste culture, and let Dehua white porcelain become a way of life and enter thousands of households. .
Dehua County builds a ceramic tourism factory (Photo by Wu Yousen)
Dehua County strives to build hundreds of exhibition halls with profound cultural connotations, complete tourism facilities, and standardized and orderly operations within the county by 2025, and form ceramic cultural tourism such as one-day tour, two-day tour, and three-day tour. The route makes ceramic tourism more cultural, and makes the “One City Porcelain Tour with Hundred Museums” a golden sign to display the ceramic culture of Dehua. (Lin Wanqing)