"Nature Contains Culture"... National Folk Museum Publishes Two Books on Intangible Heritage

National Folk Museum Publishes Two Books on Intangible Heritage
Highlighting the Value of Intangible Heritage Through the Eyes of Foreign Scholars

The National Folk Museum has published two books to help deepen understanding of intangible heritage. These books include both Korean and English versions of the winning entries from an international contest held in 2023 for overseas researchers on intangible heritage.

The book titled Living Heritage Cultural Landscapes: An Anthropological Approach to the Intangible Heritage and Linguistic Values of Canada and Poland highlights the meanings and values of intangible heritage embedded in the natural landscapes of Canada and the author's homeland, Poland. The author is an immigrant from Canada.

The author pointed out that in the United States, natural spaces have been perceived as "empty wilderness," a notion that was used as a justification for dispossessing Indigenous peoples of their lands. The author argues that natural landscapes should be viewed as "cultural landscapes" containing intangible heritage.

The other book, Traditions Connecting Time: The Shining Intangible Heritage of the Czech Republic, studies how the Czech Republic’s intangible heritage is transmitted, transformed, and developed through encounters with modern design, social movements, and digital technology.

Referring to traditional Czech textile dyeing methods designated as UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2018, the author explained that intangible heritage is not merely a commemoration of the past but a living part of contemporary society, continuously restructured and reinterpreted by each generation. Furthermore, the author argued that the most certain way to keep intangible heritage alive is to use it as inspiration for contemporary creative work.

A representative of the National Folk Museum stated, “We hope that the publication of this international intangible heritage booklet will broaden understanding of the lives of people in unfamiliar countries and the intangible heritage rooted within them, and also provide an opportunity to reinterpret our own folk culture from a new perspective within the universal history of humanity.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.