When a Traditional Craft Does Not Belong to Me, Why Do I Continue to Deepen My Engagement with It?

If a craft has lost its original social context, does it still need to be preserved unchanged?

I am often asked a simple question:“Is velvet flower craft a traditional craft of Taiwan?”

My answer has always been straightforward: no.

At least from the perspective of cultural heritage, velvet flower craft did not emerge from Taiwan’s long-term social development, nor has it been continuously transmitted as part of local everyday life.

What often follows is another question:“If it is not part of your own cultural heritage, why do you choose to work with it?”

For a long time, I found this question difficult to answer.

There were no velvet flowers in my childhood. My family did not make them. They were not part of my local culture, nor part of a tradition I inherited.

In recent discussions surrounding cultural appropriation, one might even argue that I should feel uneasy about my choice.

Eventually, however, I began to think that perhaps the question itself was misplaced.

Do we really create only through our own cultures?

If that were true, the history of art would need to be rewritten.

Oil painting emerged in Europe. Photography developed through Western technology. Printmaking evolved through centuries of exchange across regions and cultures. Many materials and techniques we now regard as “traditional” are themselves the result of long processes of migration, adaptation, and transformation.

Art has never been a closed system.Culture itself is fluid.

The more important question, therefore, is not:“Can I use this craft?”

But rather:“How do I engage with this craft?”

Beyond Cultural Appropriation: The Risk of Cultural Fixation

When discussing cultural preservation, I often encounter a paradox.

We seek to preserve tradition, yet we frequently attempt to freeze it within a particular historical moment, as if a craft achieves its ideal state only by remaining exactly as it once was.

But if a craft can only exist in the past, is it still alive?

Many traditional crafts were once embedded in everyday life. They served people, responded to social needs, and evolved alongside changing circumstances.

When those circumstances disappear, demanding that a craft remain unchanged may unintentionally deprive it of its capacity to evolve.

In trying to preserve tradition, we may also be limiting its future.

Why I Continue to Research

For many years, I believed that research existed primarily to document craft traditions—to record techniques, histories, and knowledge before they disappeared.

More recently, I have come to see that this is only part of the task.

Equally important is asking:

How might a craft continue to exist after its original function has disappeared?

This question is one reason I continue to work with velvet flower craft, wrapped flower craft, and paper flower traditions.

My goal is not to prove their value, nor to reconstruct a lost historical period.

Rather, I am interested in what happens when these crafts enter the field of contemporary art.

I Do Not Know What “One Place, One Reflection” Will Become

The truth is that I do not have answers about the future.

Perhaps one day my work will no longer be recognized as velvet flower craft.

Perhaps one day I will work simultaneously with many different craft traditions.

Perhaps one day the crafts themselves will no longer be the primary subject of discussion.

Because for me, craft is not the destination.

It is a language.

No one evaluates a novelist solely by whether they write in Chinese or English. What matters is what they choose to express.

Likewise, I hope viewers encounter more than materials or techniques in my work. I hope they encounter questions of culture, place, memory, and lived experience.

Deepening Is Not Only About Preserving the Past

I have gradually realized that my contribution as a researcher lies not only in documenting craft history.

If research remains focused solely on preservation, it remains confined to the past.

What interests me more is the possibility that a craft, once separated from its original function, may become a new artistic language.

If that possibility exists, then research is not simply about conservation.

It is about opening new possibilities.

I cannot predict what crafts will become in the future, just as I cannot predict where my own artistic practice will lead.

Yet this uncertainty is precisely why research and artistic practice remain necessary.

Deepening is not about finding answers for the future.

It is about creating conditions in which multiple futures remain possible.。

When a Traditional Craft Does Not Belong to Me, Why Do I Continue to Deepen My Engagement with It?