Precious Litter: Qing imperial craft production and intangible cultural heritage
07 Oct 2011
Public talk by Professor Dagmar Schaefer on Wednesday 26 October (12.30 -1.30pm) in The Kanaris Theatre, The Manchester Museum.
When we think of the treasures of the Forbidden City, we imagine white porcelain, intricately carved woodworks and lucent jades. In this talk, however, the focus is the more obscure treasures of the archives of the Forbidden City, Beijing: the sketches, models, samples, and tools the Qing empire used to communicate needs and desires in fields of material production.
Qing rulers assigned great importance to the circulation of technological knowledge as a political means, giving their era a distinct cultural complexity. These objects, once lingering in the darkened corners of archives are revealed as evidence of living communities, traditional handicrafts and culturally defined skills, helping to create a sense of continuity with previous generations, while safeguarding cultural diversity and the varied creativity of humanity.