“Hand-drawing Intangible Cultural Heritage” student exchange series

To raise youngsters’ awareness about the importance of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH), the “Hand-drawing Intangible Cultural Heritage” student exchange series was held virtually to jointly promote the transmission of ICH by the VTC and Shenzhen Polytechnic (SZPT) between Nov 2021 and May 2022. This is a cross-institutional and cross-programme level student exchange series in the area of arts with the participation of SZPT students and students from HD in Illustration of HKDI, together with DFS in Design of IVE(KT).

Under the theme of ICH among Hong Kong and Shenzhen, students from three institutions presented their understandings of local traditional culture in different forms. SZPT students hand-crafted ICH items of Shenzhen, such as Pingshan Kirin Dance, Pinghu Paper Dragon Dance and Songgang Seven Star Lion Dance on canvas bags. Inspired by the legendary stories from festivals and other Chinese traditions such as Dragon Boat Festival, Tai Hang Fire Dragon Dance and Chinese Herbal Tea, students of HKDI integrated their creative stories into their hand-crafted sketch books for presenting. Drawing inspirations from the 24 Solar Terms of the traditional Chinese calendar, students of IVE(KT) presented habits and cultural practices of “Spring Showers”, “Summer Solstice”, “Autumnal Equinox”, “Winter Solstice” etc. in paintings and published a handbook for distribution. Participating students showcased their artworks and shared their creative ideas and painting techniques with teachers and other fellow students from Hong Kong and Shenzhen. Their artworks generated very positive feedback from teachers from both sides in view of their vivid and ultra-realistic paintings which highlighted their outstanding painting skills.

The “Hand-drawing Intangible Cultural Heritage” student exchange series was well received with nearly 330 students and teachers attended this fruitful exchange programme. In addition to fostering the cultural exchange between Hong Kong and Shenzhen, this student exchange series also enhanced students' understanding and awareness of ICH so that our traditional culture could be passed along from one generation to the next.