Young people passionate about national culture

A group of FPT University students went on a survey to implement the project "GenZ weaving ZenG" in A Luoi district (Thua Thien Hue).

Attracting young people with art forms and a series of vivid and intuitive experiential activities, the GenZ weaving ZenG project - From weaving thread to digital streaks by a group of students of the "GenZ" generation majoring in multimedia management at FPT University Ho Chi Minh City is a combination of patterns on traditional brocade panels of the Ta Oi people when weaving Zeng with modern design aesthetics, implemented on a bitmap and pixel style background.

"Weaving" zeng on digital platform

Digitizing heritage is a trend for young people to spread the beauty of national culture. Choosing patterns and motifs on the zèng panels of the Ta Oi people to digitize, project leader Dao Khanh Linh shared: “As young people, we see that our peers are tending to integrate into modern life while forgetting traditional values.

Therefore, I and my friends Lai Thi Dieu Thuy, Dang Thi Thanh Hoa, Nguyen Tran Thien Thanh applied technology to bring culture closer to the young generation. With this project, we hope to erase the invisible boundary between zeng patterns and modern designs as well as the distance in space, bringing each weaving stitch to spread to our generation, helping the good values of zeng weaving appear more in the digital age.

In addition, we hope that the GenZ ZenG weaving project will contribute to raising awareness among young people about heritage conservation, while encouraging the younger generation to learn and research the brocade weaving culture of the Ta Oi people in particular and Vietnamese culture in general."

During many field trips to A Ngo and A Dot communes, A Luoi district, meeting Ta Oi women who still weave zèng, the group of young people received enthusiastic support from the local people. Being able to touch, see with their own eyes and be attracted by the eye-catching color bands, the system of patterns on zèng, each delicate weaving stroke on the zèng, the project team understood more about the weaving profession that has existed for hundreds of years. Each story about zèng is a mark of a simple life, imbued with culture highlighted by each bead and each soft thread.

Weaving zèng is one of the unique traditional weaving techniques in the brocade weaving system in Vietnam, requiring high skills, meticulousness and meticulousness. To weave a zèng, in the same operation, the worker must weave the thread pattern, insert beads and thread the thread without any sketches.

During the field trips, the group observed and recorded the weaving process, exploring how to combine colors to create patterns from the horizontal and vertical threads as well as the logic in the art of weaving. Achoa Pâl Luuch is the oldest thread pattern, used to separate beaded patterns and is the pattern with the most beautiful color tones.

The Ku Boal Eye pattern has a majestic beauty, considered to be the eyes of the gods that the Ta Oi people worship with the hope of being protected by the gods. During the process of analyzing, researching and digitizing, the group chose a bitmap style to convert the pattern into a grid image with small square pixels, which is both effective on monochrome bead patterns and easy to apply in contemporary media publications.

Doing culture the “GenZ” way

During the field trip, the project team noticed that many young Ta Oi people had left their hometowns to work in big cities. Therefore, when seeing the group of students implementing the project, the people in the villages were very excited because they understood the project's goals. Enthusiastically helping the group learn about the profession, the people also expressed their hope that the young people would help spread the values of Zeng more widely.

Mr. Ra Pat Ngoc Ha, A Dot village, Lam Dot commune, A Luoi district said that the young generation will inherit and contribute to the development of the weaving profession, so he hopes that the weaving profession will be widely spread to young people. Ms. A Ko Pi Nghe, a Ta Oi ethnic group, a member of the Ethnicity group, a pioneering community project in digitizing brocade patterns, participated in supporting and advising the GenZ ZenG weaving group, shared: "Zeng weaving is a part of the Ta Oi people's life, so I want to bring the pride of my people, bring the characteristics of traditional culture to connect with young people to share and promote this unique type of brocade."

Bridging the gap between culture and digital, the website and fanpage of the project “GenZ weaving ZenG” have also actively shared about the brocade weaving culture of the Ta Oi people. In order to increase awareness and attract the attention of young people, the posts are interwoven with trendy, interesting, and engaging content, but do not lose the value of cultural identity.

The series of stories “In the past” and “GenZ describes ZenG, from A to Z” provide information collected from field trips to A Luoi district, stories about people and land, beliefs, customs, etc. so that everyone can explore the weaving profession through a digital platform. When the pattern digitization is successful, the group uploads the original digital pattern, the original digital pattern, and the digital image of the pattern “woven” on the digital platform to the GenZ ZenG weaving digital library. This is a treasure trove of diverse digital information about Zeng patterns and motifs.

In the coming time, contemporary designers will sell products applying digitized zèng brocade patterns and develop modern designs, with the goal of conveying messages through the products as well as spreading the traditional beauty of Vietnam's intangible cultural heritage.

To highlight the applicability of digital patterns and convey the project message more effectively, the group will launch the music video Det loi em ve with the rap genre combined with vocalist, a popular genre with GenZ today; organize the workshop "Vet so Zeng" so that young people can better understand the process of digitizing ethnic patterns through interactive activities and direct experiences.

In addition, the digital exhibition “Discovering Zeng Patterns” through the lens of digital technology displays Zeng patterns that have been digitized, developed and put into illustrative products in many different forms. In order to spread and better understand the preservation of Zeng weaving culture, the project continues with the Digital Creativity Camp in online form and completes the film of the journey of young people preserving and spreading the Zeng weaving craft.

According to Nhan Dan Newspaper

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