Wickerwork, as one of China’s traditional folk handicrafts, is a product of the loess farming culture, and reputed as the living fossil of farming civilization. Taking the opportunity of the rural revitalization strategy, the Jiangbei Shuicheng (Waterside Town) Tourist Resort, Liaocheng, Shandong, has continued to enhance the building of local talent teams. In particular, Wei Fuqing, the sixth-generation inheritor of Wei’s wickerwork, has shown his own ingenuity, and added a new connotation to wickerwork by combining old craft and new design.

In the Xianfeng Period of Qing, Wei Yongxiang, the founder of Wei’s wickerwork, began to produce wicker products. Wei Fuqing is the sixth-generation inheritor. Learning wicker plaiting from his grandparents since his childhood, Wei Fuqing has systematically mastered the skills and techniques of Wei’s wickerwork. Like knitting a sweater, his fingers moved quickly, transformed wicker from threads to planes, from a single twig to a three-dimensional form, and finally made it into artworks in different styles.

On the basis of inheriting the traditional craft, Wei Fuqing has continued to bring forth new ideas, and independently developed aluminum wire plaiting articles by grafting aluminum wire onto the wickerwork craft to overcome the difficulties of wicker plaiting. Aluminum wire is soft and easy to bend, with a uniform thickness and an elegant color. Now, with Wei Fuqing’s continuous design and innovation, his plaited products have been no longer single, and developed towards diversification. His works include small ornaments, and big fowls and beasts.

The improved wickerwork craft includes a number of techniques, e.g. “warp plaiting”, “vertical plaiting”, “twisting plaiting”, “plain plaiting”, “floral plaiting”, and “stringing”. Density contrast, cross of warp and weft, and other modes are employed to form a relief-like artistic effect on the plaited plane, adding color layers. The combination of old craft and new design, and the perfect integration of traditional and modern elements have enabled the old plaiting craft to remain unfading, and become a fashion.

As a representative of intangible cultural heritage inheritors, at the front end, Wei Fuqing has used video accounts and other platforms to attract attention by displaying works in the form of short videos or live-streaming. Now, he has accumulated 17 million followers online, and over 6 billion video views, with 290 million views in a single video. At the back end, he has opened the online market of plaiting articles, further improved intangible cultural heritage publicity and product sales, boosted the consumption of intangible cultural heritage products, and carried forward the fine traditional Chinese culture by developing products in his workshop and guaranteeing supply.

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