The Exhibition of the Spring Festival was wrapped up at the China National Arts and Crafts Museum (also known as the China Intangible Cultural Heritage Museum) in Beijing on Mar. 2. Since the beginning of the exhibition in December, 2024, a number of representative inheritors of intangible cultural heritage (ICH) in Suzhou have been invited to make live demonstrations of traditional crafts and ICH skills at the “Crafts of Suzhou” exhibition area.
Preliminary statistics from the Suzhou Protection and Management Office of Intangible Cultural Heritage showed that more than one million people visited the exhibition at the China Intangible Cultural Heritage Museum to have a touch of Suzhou’s intangible cultural heritage. During the exhibition, more than 2,000 Suzhou ICH products were sold, with a sales volume of more than 500,000 yuan, the highest daily sales volume reaching 20,000 yuan. Among them, Su embroidery works, pearl jewelry, fruit pit carving works and derivative creative cultural products of Kesi and Taohuawu New Year wood-block painting were most favored by visitors who could hardly resist the urge to buy.
Highlights of the exhibition included Suzhou’s traditional crafts such as Kesi, Su embroidery, fruit pit carving, and metal handicrafts, together with over 3,000 ICH products and creative cultural products, which showed the achievements Suzhou has made in promoting the inheritance and innovation of traditional culture. In addition, representative ICH inheritors from Suzhou made demonstrations on a weekly basis, offering exhibition-goers a chance to have a zero-distance contact with the crafts masters.
The Exhibition of the Spring Festival kicked off after “Spring Festival, social practices of the Chinese people in celebration of the traditional new year” was inscribed on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) at the end of 2024.
