Award-winning folk art and crafts to be exhibited in SZ

"Blooming Splendor: Exhibition of Works by Winners of the Shanhua Award for Chinese Folk Crafts" will open at the Sea World Culture and Arts Center (SWCAC) on Nov. 3, marking the first large-scale showcase in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area of outstanding works by past Shanhua Award winners.

A poster for "Blooming Splendor: Exhibition of Works by Winners of the Shanhua Award for Chinese Folk Crafts." Photo courtesy of SWCAC

The Shanhua Award, jointly organized by the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles and the Chinese Folk Literature and Art Association, is China's highest honor in folk arts and crafts. 

Since its inception in 1999, the award has recognized outstanding folk art works and nurtured leading practitioners in the field. It has become an important bridge between tradition and modernity, folk culture and contemporary life, as well as an authoritative benchmark for the development of Chinese folk arts. 

The award's name, "Shanhua," literally means mountain flowers. Growing wild in the mountains, they flourish without cultivation — a fitting metaphor for folk crafts, which emerge organically from local traditions and are passed down through generations. When works by award-winning artists from across the years come together, they form a vivid tapestry of creativity, as reflected in the exhibition's title, "Blooming Splendor."

More than 40 Shanhua Award-winning artists from over 10 provinces and municipalities will present more than 150 representative works at the exhibition. The works span forms including ceramics, embroidery, carving, lacquer art, paper-cutting, shadow puppetry and lantern art, among others.

Taking "Tiangong Kaiwu" (The Exploitation of the Works of Nature) as its narrative framework, the exhibition also seeks to looks beyond the works themselves and explore the principles and wisdom behind them. 

The exhibition is guided by the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles and jointly organized by the Chinese Folk Literature and Art Association and the Guangdong Federation of Literary and Art Circles. "The 16th Guangdong Folk Craft Masterpieces Exhibition" will also take place at SWCAC during the same period.

Dates: Nov. 3-Nov. 22

Venue: UCCN Gallery, 2F, Sea World Culture and Arts Center, Nanshan District (南山区海上世界文化艺术中心L2联合国教科文组织展馆)

Metro: Line 2 or 12 to Sea World Station (海上世界站), Exit A, then walk around 800 meters