How Design Technology Improves the Sustainability of Intangible Cultural Heritage Products: A Practical Study on Bamboo Basketry Craft

Abstract

The sustainability problem of many intangible cultural heritage (ICH) products stems from the shrinking of the core practitioner group, which is also the case for bamboo basketry craft. We believe that the problem in bamboo basketry originated in the lack of labor division between design and manufacturing, which prevents professional designers from entering this industry and results in the absence of several key stakeholders related to innovation and R&D. The lack of labor division is due to the technical difficulties associated with expressing the design concepts. The complexity of basket weaving structures makes it difficult to communicate between designer and manufacturer without precise expression tools, thus binding design and manufacturing into an integrated role. Guided by the user innovation theory, our team studied the design technology of bamboo basketry and developed a series of aiding tools, including the modeling of basic over–under structures and free weaving structures, automatic mapping techniques from 2D to 3D and several frequently used weaving skills, such as connecting, wrapping, plaiting and knotting. This technology enables designers to quickly design and express weaving structures with full details in digital models rather than to make samples. The application of the software shows that the technology considerably improved the designer interest and confidence. This technical solution makes designers, rather than programmers, able to do the development work, which also helps to create a sustainable ecological environment of technological research, also avoiding the difficulties associated with attracting business investment for such niche demands in the starting stage. Our practice shows that the sustainability of ICH products and the sustainability of the industry are closely related and that solving the latter supports the former.

How Does Overtourism Affect Intangible Cultural Heritage Elements?

“…As a result of the literature review on the effects of overtourism on ICH, it has been observed that specific effects are at the forefront. For example, overtourism has an impact on the demand for ICH (Chen, 2020;Dang et al, 2021;Petronela, 2016;Qui, 2022;Yuan et al, 2020), ICH production (Masoud et al, 2019;Su, 2021;Sun and Liu, 2022), ICH sales process (Zhang & Lee, 2022), ICH authenticity (Bortolotto, 2021;Maags, 2021), ICH economic value (Kim et al, 2019;Luo et al, 2022). Since the literature also supported the questions, the literature significantly contributed to creating themes.…”

“…At the same time, they also noted that tourist interest in some parts of the ICH may be more intense. Sun and Liu (2022) say that despite the high demand, ICH elements are manufactured by artisans in the workshop.…”

Application interface design of Chongqing intangible cultural heritage based on deep learning

“…[ 10 , 11 ]. These methods achieved certain research findings in the ICH image recognition of and improved the efficiency and accuracy of its protection and inheritance [ 12 ]. The second was a study of ICH digitization using the DL technology [ 13 , 14 ].…”

Sustainability|Special Issue: Cultural Industries and Sustainable Development

“…Hence, as a vital tourism resource, intangible cultural heritage can activate the in-depth experience of tourists for sustainable development. In contribution 9, the authors argue that the lack of labor between design and manufacturing blocked the development of the bamboo basketry craft industry [7]. Therefore, based on the innovation theory, the authors' team studied the design technology of bamboo basketry, and developed a series of tools to aid the bamboo basketry industry.…”