The future of rural culture

"What we are trying to do is distill experiences that can be shared, while opening space for equal dialogue and mutual learning," Xiang says.

He also outlined a series of ongoing initiatives under the UNESCO Chair, including creative rural residencies for young practitioners, art-led rural vitalization projects, rural cultural databases, and multilingual case archives documenting cultural practices in sustainable development. Xiang says the goal is not simply to document rural practices, but to create platforms where experiences from different regions can be exchanged on equal terms.

Over the past years, these efforts have expanded into sustained field-based training platforms, including a six-year "Creative 100" program in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area that has brought together more than 130 young designers and practitioners, as well as cross-regional craft experiments in provinces such as Guizhou, Yunnan and Sichuan, notes Chen Ping, chairholder of the UNESCO Chair on World Traditional Handicrafts: Inheritance and Innovation, and dean of the Academy of Cultural Heritage and Creativity of Jinan University.

The initiative has also generated extensive field documentation and exhibition outputs, alongside a growing publication series on traditional Chinese handicrafts.

Chen says many heritage projects are no longer focused solely on preservation. Crafts are increasingly entering schools, community workshops, tourism programs, and contemporary design collaborations.

"Culture should not remain in the past as a static legacy. It must be oriented toward the future as a shared imagination," she explains.

Chen says that the shift also changes who gets to shape cultural heritage projects.

"Cultural heritage is not only about safeguarding what exists," she says. "It is about deciding who activates it, under what systems, and for whom it is transformed."