Celebrating old arts in new forms

WorldSkills expo highlights cultural heritage's ability to move forward, Wang Xin reports in Shanghai.

Paintings and photographs aren't limited to being created and displayed on canvas or photo paper. For Jiang Wenkui, a Shanghai silk embroidery inheritor, they can also be exquisitely presented on silk, stitch by stitch.

Listed as part of the city's intangible cultural heritage in 2023, Shanghai silk embroidery boasts a century-long history. Its origins date back hundreds, if not thousands, of years.

Shanghai silk embroidery blends the city's local Gu embroidery and the strengths of other renowned embroidery traditions of Jiangsu, Hunan, Sichuan, and Guangdong provinces. It also integrates kesi (cut-silk) tapestry as well as diverse artistic forms and techniques such as Chinese gongbi (meticulous brushwork) painting, ink-wash painting, freehand brushwork — also known as xieyi, a method of Chinese brushwork marked by loose, semiabstract strokes and carefree expanses of layered colors — and oil painting.