Intangible Cultural Heritage Inheritor: Breathing New Life into Purple Pottery

As an inheritor of intangible cultural heritage (ICH), an artisan has been upholding the craftsmanship of purple pottery making and advocating for the preservation of traditional crafts over the years, focusing on a core question: how to keep age-old crafts alive in the modern era and secure a broader future for them.

This reflection has been translated into consistent action. In experiments, the inheritor adjusts the shapes of teapots and cups to fit modern tea-drinking habits, and optimizes decorative vessel designs, ensuring purple pottery retains its traditional charm while meeting contemporary practical needs. During field investigations, the artisan visits rural workshops to exchange ideas with fellow craftspeople, turning insights gained from these interactions into new strategies.

Key initiatives include promoting in-depth integration of ICH crafts with the modern industrial system, introducing brand management and professional design, establishing a quality certification system for handcrafted ICH products, and building platforms for cooperation between young designers and craftspeople—all to ensure the value of traditional crafts is seen and recognized.

Concrete efforts have been made to pass on the craft: public welfare activities have been launched to provide young people with learning and practice platforms, and calls have been made for vocational colleges to set up ICH-related majors and improve their faculty and curriculum systems. Thanks to these efforts, more and more people are now becoming familiar with purple pottery firing techniques.

The inheritor emphasizes that the vitality of ICH lies in inheritance and innovation, with the role of the market and consumption being indispensable. Efforts are also being made to address challenges such as inconsistent product quality, insufficient practicality, low market recognition and weak consumer appeal.

Looking ahead, the inheritor will continue to safeguard the craft passed down from ancestors, polish high-quality works with time, communicate with the times through creations, integrate traditional crafts into daily life, empower people’s well-being, and preserve cultural roots through craft inheritance. Purple pottery, crafted through elaborate processes including mud refining, hand throwing, carving and filling, high-temperature firing, and glaze-free polishing, is being revitalized through such dedicated efforts.