Background and Purposes

China is home to a rich and proud intangible cultural heritage. Pitifully,although much of it has received careful protection due to its popularity, yet the rest of intangible cultural heritage remains unknown and unrecognized with no worthy inheritors. In the meantime, intangible cultural heritage threatens to decline and even go extinct. A possible means is integrating intangible cultural heritage with the creative cultural industry. Given fresh meaning in a new era, intangible cultural heritage will live and thrive while maintaining its genuine flavor.

This project is designed to promote the social and economic development of China’s southwestern ethnic minority regions. By upgrading educational philosophy and translating the academic achievements into real forces of production for regional economic growth, through the project Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU) is committed to improving mechanism of cooperation with local governments and thus drawing on comparative strengths for common development while documenting ethnic intangible cultural heritage. Based on SJTU’s strengths in arts and design disciplines, we will build a talent pool of design specialists for the southwestern ethnic minority regions (Guizhou Province) and help alleviate local poverty through design. A school with hundreds of international students, SJTU School of Design in this project will introduce international leading design ideas to the regions while spreading local excellent intangible cultural heritage through creative cultural products.

General Outline

1. Proposal development: Finalize a research proposal within two weeks, working jointly with local partners in the Guizhou Province.

2. Recruitment: Participants will be recruited from SJTU, including 15 international students, 10 Chinese students, and 3 volunteers, all of whom are required to specialize in design.

3. Training: 3 training sessions are to be held in preparation for project implementation.

4. Detailed implementation plan: The plan includes conducting research, designing workshops, carrying out phase and final reviews, arranging transportation and accommodations, etc.

5. Implementation: The Project is to be implemented in the Qiannan Buyi and Miao Autonomous Prefecture of Guizhou Province from July through August.

6. Wrap-up: A final report and outcomes of the project will be presented at SJTU.

Management Guidelines

The project leader shall be in direct charge of its implementation, The project leader is supposed to ensure production of research report, chart progress, deploy personnel, and manage funds and materials. The leader shall also be accountable for the authenticity of the results, and must conscientiously subject himself/herself to the oversight by the competent departments of SJTU. The other members shall work with each other to perform tasks as required.