【New Year grassroots】Shandong Gaomi: Clay sculpture calls Tiger Exhibition new face and new clothes to present a better life

The Year of the Tiger says tiger, in Gaomi there is an old craft of more than 400 years - clay sculpture called tiger. Through their own dedicated creations, the local clay sculpture artists let the enduring "clay sculpture called tiger" show a new look, change new clothes, and present a better life with a new attitude.

During the New Year's holiday, in Niejiazhuang, Gaomi City, a group of children were playing a game of "mud tigers". With the arrival of the Year of the Tiger in the 2022 Zodiac, the sound, colorful, tangible and interesting mud tiger made by local folk artists with mud has become a beloved New Year "net red".

Gaomi clay sculpture is an ancient traditional folk craft that has a history of more than 400 years. With the development of the times, the simple shape and colorful Niejiazhuang clay sculptures have gradually become a popular form of folk art with a strong sense of interaction and participation in the process of people's play, and have entered the lives of ordinary people.

Nie Chenxi, a high-density clay sculpture artist, introduced that this is a tiger head made of mud embryos, and in the middle is a whistle made of natural reeds, which is the tiger's tail, and then uses high-grade leather to connect them together, push back and forth, and you can make a sound. It is the biggest feature of Niejiazhuang clay sculpture and is unique in the country.

In order to adapt the traditional clay sculptures to the development of the times, Lao Nie also integrated many new elements into the clay sculptures called Hujia together with his son Nie Peng. Driven by the Year of the Tiger in the Chinese Zodiac, the sales volume of clay sculptures in Gaomi Niejiazhuang increased by more than 20%.

Nie Peng, a high-density clay sculpture artist, said that combining the patterns and elements of the practice of civilization in the new era makes them more cute and cute, which is in line with people's modern aesthetic characteristics.

In 2021, Nie Peng, a post-90s boy who dared to try, also applied to set up the Niejiazhuang Clay Sculpture Professional Cooperative to lead the development of local villagers, and jointly developed high-density clay sculpture cultural and creative derivatives with the doctoral team of the Shenzhen Graduate School of Tsinghua University, further calling the cultural brand of high-density clay sculpture.

Ma Yao, a doctor of design at the Shenzhen Graduate School of Tsinghua University, introduced that at present, we are jointly developing cultural and creative derivatives with Niejiazhuang Clay Sculpture to promote the creation, development and innovation transformation of traditional Chinese tiger culture, so that it can better integrate into the lives of contemporary people and glow with new vitality and vitality.

With the joint efforts of two generations, the high-density clay sculpture called Tiger has also gone abroad with the help of e-commerce live broadcasting, cultural exchanges and other platforms, and has carried out cultural exchanges in more than 20 countries such as France and Germany.

Nie Peng, the inheritor of gaomi clay sculpture, said that as the youngest clay sculpture inheritor in the village, I am now very passionate and very motivated. I will make more clay sculptures to encourage more young people to engage in intangible cultural heritage projects, so that this intangible cultural heritage project can be carried forward.

Reporter Zhou Mingxiu Gao Mitai Hu Jianglin Xing Cheng