In this blog I used structured online interviews to 6 stakeholders.
Due to the time difference between China and the UK, I asked 6 stakeholders five questions in Wechat for this action research.
The following is their personal introduction.
- Professor Yu Binxia (YBX), born in of Changsha, a researcher and embroidery committee expert of Hunan Museum, and as a professional embroidery curator.
- Gan Sheng (GS) who is the Director of Changsha Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Center.
- Liu Aixun （LAY）, female, born in of Changsha , Hunan , a master of Chinese arts and crafts, engaged in Hunan embroidery for more than 50 years.
- Liu Bin （LB）, Director of Industrial Development Bureau of Jinxia Development Zone.
- Hou Ying （HY）, born in of Changsha, Director of the Cultural and Creative Center of Changsha Museum.
- LI Zhenzhe (LZZ), born in of Changsha, a graphic designer who loves Hunan embroidery and has his own graphic design studio.
Questions
Q1: With the development of technology, do you think machine embroidery can replace hand embroidery?
YBX：In the case of embroidery, the definition it gives us is a handicraft, emphasizing a handicraft. It is two dimensions, one is handicraft and the other is art. your mother have known handicraft skills, stitching skills, color matching skills, embroidery thread processing skills and color matching skills, right? I just feel that if you consider from these aspects, I think there is no way to replace hand embroidery with machine embroidery.
GS: First of all, it is necessary to find out the source of machine embroidery. It is the result of human creative labor. Even if machine embroidery AI reaches a certain height, it cannot replace the agility, thinking, creativity and uniqueness of human beings in embroidery.
LAY: With the development of science and technology, I think it is difficult for machine embroidery to replace hand embroidery. Traditional machine embroidery production lacks the cultural connotation and artistic value of hand embroidery! Whether it is embroidery thread material or Hunan embroidery stitching, it is difficult to achieve. In the future, hand embroidery + artificial intelligence can be used to simulate the artistic effect of hand embroidery production.
LB: To be honest，machine embroidery and hand embroidery are not a relationship of substitution and substitution, but both exist at the same time and develop interdependently. Hand embroidery is the memory of traditional culture. Each piece of embroidery has a unique quality, which better preserves the embroidery mother’s handicraft inheritance and precipitates her “temperature”. This type of embroidery has cultural value and collection value. . Machine embroidery came into being to meet the needs of the industrialized era. Embroidery products can be standardized and mass-produced, suitable for production and life-oriented works, and have the characteristics of popularization and popularization, such as shawls, scarves, cheongsam and so on. From different perspectives, you can choose different production methods. In the future, in terms of market demand, the two will be compatible and develop together.
HY: Machine embroidery can never replace hand embroidery, just like digital can never replace film, because the emotions of people mixed in handicraft can never be replaced by machines
LZZ: No, the value of emotion.
Q2: How do you think hand embroidery uses its artistic attributes to give full play to its commercial value, and what are the difficulties?
YBX：This involves the cost of hand embroidery, because the cost of hand embroidery is very high. In the case of machine embroidery, it is a programmed thing, and it takes very little time to complete some embroidery items, while hand embroidery takes a lot of time. I think this is also a bottleneck for sustainable development, and it is also a bottleneck for its development. How to play its commercial attributes, this problem may be what we call intangible cultural heritage. Not only the embroidery, but all the intangible cultural heritage involves the handicraft. It is a problem of survival. The first show will give full play to its commercial value. It may take the way of high-quality products and personalization to develop high-end products. However, in this case, its price is not close to the people, and it is generally difficult for the public to accept it, so this is actually a contradiction, so why the government pay attention to it, it may also be aware of such a problem.
GS: People’s needs are divided into several levels, the highest is spiritual needs, the pursuit of beauty, hand embroidery as a work of art, its commercial value has existed for more than 2,000 years, and it is completely continuous.
LAY：Hand embroidery should make use of its own hand embroidery spirituality, superb techniques and artistic style of individual masters, so as to realize the transformation of works from handicraft attributes to works of art attributes, and give full play to the commercial value of their works of art!
However, we are currently facing difficulties in manual embroidery: in the future, there will be no successors, product homogeneity, and high labor costs for manual embroidery, resulting in high prices and low production efficiency. It takes more than 10 years to train a young Hunan embroidery inheritor. It takes more than 30 years to become a Hunan embroidery master, and the non-standard of the inheritance of the master-apprentice system.
LB：Commercial value depends on the value and use value of the commodity. Hand embroidery is not only affected by the embroiderer’s own technology, social influence, brand value and other factors, but also has a long production cycle, time-consuming and labor-intensive reasons, and even a large cost investment. Therefore, higher value means that the price should be sold higher. However, there are many works of art in hand embroidery, and it is necessary to match the aesthetic value with the businessmen in order to discover its artistic use value, which leads to a narrow audience, which is the reason why most embroidery products are “valuable but not marketable”. Embroidery products that are not sold have their commercial value “hidden”.
HY: I think the ultimate trend of hand embroidery is the luxury goods and high-end gift market. The biggest difficulty is the problem of publicity. Only by letting our own Chinese people fully understand our own culture can we export our culture to the world and make Chinese hand embroidery become the world’s famous luxury
LZZ：In the new consumption era, brands and consumption patterns are being upgraded and iterated. Generation Z will gradually become the main force of market consumption. The traditional offline business model can no longer meet the needs of new consumers. Hand embroidery has its inherited cultural value and artistic attributes. , but must upgrade iterations
Q3: What do you think the future of traditional hand embroidery will look like?
YBX：There are still bottlenecks, and in the future, it will be high-quality products. Small ones are high-quality products, and large-sized ones are also high-quality products, because their prices are not close to the people.
GS:The future of hand embroidery still requires continuous innovation, continuous integration and creation.
LAY：In the future, there will be fewer and fewer people who inherit traditional hand embroidery, the price will become more and more expensive, and there will be fewer and fewer good and exquisite handicraft works. Therefore, it is necessary to cultivate the younger generation of compound talents to inherit Hunan embroidery and innovate Hunan embroidery; Only crossover each industries with cooperation , culture + technology can better inherit Hunan embroidery and carry forward it!
LB：The time has come, and the future is promising. It is necessary to keep pace with the times, reform and innovate, and combine the traditional beauty of hand embroidery with the aesthetics of modern young people, so that the aesthetic trend is contemporary and modern. The inscription of “Rich and Noble” was even unacceptable to the post-90s audience, and this aesthetic taste remained in the 1950s and 1960s. Furthermore, the display form should be more diverse. Electronic light, sound, shadow, etc. can be integrated into hand embroidery, so that the traditional hand embroidery can be rendered three-dimensional, dynamic and alive.
HY:In the future, we must take the route of high-end customized gifts or decorations, and we can cooperate with international famous brands to enter the luxury industry.
LZZ：The future of traditional hand embroidery lies in the innovation of products and the renewal and iteration of consumption patterns. First of all, it is necessary to combine modern mainstream aesthetic trends, combine traditional craftsmanship with new tracks, and present conceptual and simple graphic images with traditional methods. . The second is online promotion. We must make use of content traffic platforms such as Xiaohongshu, Tiktok, Weibo, etc., so that embroidery culture can enter the vision of new consumers.
Q4: Now traditional Chinese hand embroidery needs more innovation in the expression of artistic themes (artwork) or does it need more hand embroidery combined with the commodity market (art goods)?
YBX：Nowadays, many people in China think that they embroider what they think is ethnic embroidery. They think that the embroidery in this place is ethnic embroidery, or what ethnicity does the embroiderer belong to, then what he embroiders is ethnic embroidery. This embroiderer may imitate the outer layer, but he does not have the indigenous stitches, techniques, patterns, and spirit that are unique to his own nation. He has not shown it, so this is actually a process of homogenization, including the present There are actually four famous embroidery in China (Xiang embroidery in central China’s Hunan Province, Shu embroidery in western China’s Sichuan Province, Yue embroidery in southern China’s Guangdong Province and Su embroidery in eastern China’s Jiangsu Province), and there is such a problem, so more personalized ethnic embroidery is needed.
GS:The purpose of innovation and creation is to reach new heights in art and new creations in business to meet the needs of different levels of consumption.
LAY：For the better inheritance of Hunan embroidery in the future, both are indispensable, that is, it is necessary to innovate in the expression of artistic themes to improve the value of Hunan embroidery works of art; at the same time, it is also necessary to combine manual embroidery with the commodity market to commercialize art and let some Cost-effective and youthful Hunan embroidery life products have entered the homes of the common people! Enter thousands of households! Let more young people love Hunan embroidery!
LB：This question has some similarities with the first question. To put it bluntly, it is the problem of art commercialization and commercial artization. It is essentially the same thing, but the focus and starting point are different. The expression method of artistic themes is innovative. The expression method is craftsmanship and technology. This knowledgeable person cares more, but the public aesthetics care more about the innovation of content, using the technology of Hunan embroidery to express the works they want with a modern vision. These works are then traded to convert the use value into value, which also caters to the commodity market.
HY:I think first of all, on the basis of maintaining the inheritance of traditional themes and patterns in terms of themes and forms, keeping pace with the times, and constantly updating and developing themes and contents, so as to better match the modern business society.
LZZ：Personally, I feel that hand-embroidered artworks are relatively mature, including Master Jiang’s works selected for the World Expo, Olympic Games and other existing products, in fact, they already have the attributes of artworks, and they need to be changed according to the market. How to make artworks become commodities is the key. For example, after the brand upgrade and iteration, co-brand with the Guochao brand? Combining embroidery craftsmanship with clothing and other peripheral products, no longer let the picture frame canvas become the carrier of embroidery, and naturally convert artworks into art commodities
Q5:What problem do you most want to solve in the current Chinese traditional embroidery industry?
YBX：I hope that the traditional embroidery industry will still take its own path of personalization instead of homogenization. You are like our Hunan embroidery. In fact, lions, tigers, and leopards can’t be embroidered by other embroidery types among the other four famous embroidery types. Right, this is our characteristic, including Taoyuan embroidery is also the same, why he achieved such high achievements in the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China period is actually related to the application of this characteristic needle method.
GS:The standardization and rectification of the industry should focus on distinguishing machine embroidery and hand embroidery, and embody the value of hand embroidery artworks.
LAY：I think what needs to be solved urgently is the production problem, talent problem and product innovation problem in the traditional Chinese embroidery industry! Let more young people inherit and innovate Hunan embroidery, and let the world fall in love with the beauty of Chinese Hunan embroidery!
LB：The first is to avoid the problem of involutionary competition. Hunan embroidery originated in Shaping. The people engaged in this industry are all villagers. However, in the face of the wave of marketization, vicious competition and disorderly operation are inevitable, which leads to the social disapproval of Hunan embroidery. The level of understanding is uneven, and its value has also been discounted. Then there is the issue of speeding up the training of newcomers, so that the traditional craftsmanship can be passed down from generation to generation, and when necessary, a “big database of Hunan embroidery craftsmanship” is established to store these memories. The third is continuous brand promotion. In the reception and communication of government affairs and business, the use of embroidery as a medium of emotional connection is encouraged, so as to gradually increase the popularity and brand effect of the embroidery industry.
HY:I want to solve the problem of popularization and publicity of embroidery knowledge, and let the public know that embroidery is also an indispensable part of the broad and profound traditional art of the Chinese nation. What is its craft technique? Where is the difficulty in it? How to appreciate it all need publicity and education from the media, self-media, and the society, so that more people can understand embroidery, and let every Chinese become a promoter of our traditional embroidery to the world.
LZZ：Product Innovation
Through this action research, I have benefited a lot, because the interviewers have different job positions, but there are certain similarities in some aspects, such as the difficulties faced by traditional Chinese embroidery and the problems they want to solve, but they also have similarities. According to my social position, I have different opinions, and what they say is a real problem. I am trying to find a way to absorb this information and try to combine this information to find a breakthrough for my own project.
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